


The Contract

by presiding



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Multi, Slow Burn, Suspense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-23
Packaged: 2021-03-23 14:15:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30056739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/presiding/pseuds/presiding
Summary: Daud says he knows a fool’s contract when he sees one. Billie would point out, none too gently, that’s a lot of talk for someone stuck with Corvo.Dishonored, if Daud played more of a leading role and never took the contract on Jessamine, and it changes everything.As well as a plot I can also offer you:- Adorable Corvo & Emily things- A proper character arc for Billie like she deserves but never really got in canon :')- Very wholesome Daud & Billie moments (that they ruin because they suck at emotions but still, wholesome)- Jess & Corvo have a bit of a Morticia & Gomez vibe- ... someone gets a dog
Relationships: Callista Curnow/Jessamine Kaldwin, Corvo Attano & Daud, Corvo Attano/Daud, Corvo Attano/Jessamine Kaldwin, Daud & Billie Lurk | Meagan Foster
Comments: 12
Kudos: 20





	1. Up to the neck

_ Corvo _

Empress Jessamine gave a huff of surprise, drawing Corvo from his reverie. Spinning in her seat, she held up an unsigned note. “This was on my desk, a meeting request. Thoughts?”

He read warily. There was a formal process for meeting with the Empress, and there was no good reason for trying to get around it. The missive implied great peril. Of course it did.

“Nothing good. Maybe a prank, maybe a would-be suitor with poor taste. I wouldn’t advise it. I’ll pass this to spymaster Burrows, so he can investigate how this got here,” he said, thinking this would be the end of the discussion. Everyone in Dunwall thought they knew what should be priority one for the Empress.

Jessamine shook her head. “A request for a private meeting is not unusual enough for alarm. I dislike not knowing which ‘high stakes matters’ this refers to, so I shall make myself available.”

Corvo’s heart sank a little. The Empress had unshakable faith in her subjects and he wouldn’t change that for the world. But void, did it make his job more complicated.

It made her job harder too, in fairness, which made him pause before he responded. If Jess was taking this seriously, then he would too, like it or not. “High stakes do seem to come with the crown,” Corvo said, watching her face brighten as he took her hand. Her palm was small in his, but it warmed him through.

“There’s little to fear with you beside me,” Jess winked up at him. She returned her attention to the desk, fingertips tapping beneath her lace sleeves. “Although, I do wish to impress upon this note’s sender that—”

“Yes. I’ll have extra guards stationed. Brief them to scowl more than usual.” Corvo couldn’t hide his relief.

The Month of Seeds had been...not good. He'd been up late at night, scouring the city. Jess and her royal physician Sokolov had been frustrated at the disjointed data they'd received from the City Watch's dead counters, and after hearing their complaints, Burrows suggested sending Corvo incognito to verify that the selective lockdown was going ahead as planned. It had been weeks of gruelling hours, but it was something he could do to help Jess’ fight against the plague.

Combined with his schedule of guarding and supporting Jess—who was busier than ever—he had been feeling barely like himself. He walked around the Tower feeling lightheaded and wrong, like he'd lost too much blood in a fight turned sour, but without the thrill of adrenaline to keep him going.

But he could not complain—he’d push through, he always had. Jess was feeling the pinch too, and the burden she bore was far greater than his. His charges were only two. She, on the other hand, was responsible for the lives and future of an empire.

In a cruel twist, Empress Jessamine’s popularity had plummeted since the plague. As he’d said to her, over and over, this was unavoidable. The papers needed someone to blame, and the Empress was the first place to look. Opinion was outside of her control. Though he had to admit, the press had been vicious recently. Corvo had seen everything from complaints about her perceived lack of action on the plague, to angry opinion pieces insisting she was Gristol’s harbinger.

He rolled his shoulders, stretching, trying to work out the tension in his neck. As much faith as he had in Jess, he knew the mysterious meeting request would be another thing on the smorgasbord of worries keeping him awake.

* * *

_ Daud _

Contract negotiation was a standard skill for those in the business of killing people.

This, though? This seemed anything but standard.

Daud transversed into the Empress’ meeting room at the time he’d indicated. Not that he minded making royalty wait for him, more that it was essential to leave a good impression. He wanted to name his price, after all.

Quickly, he schooled his habits to seem less threatening, paying mind to not stand up too straight, keeping his empty hands loose in front of himself. It was best that she could see he came to her without weapons. Smile in a way that wasn’t too threatening, even if it was on the face of a killer.

He inhaled, ready to introduce himself. 

“Greetings, Daud. You must know that a man such as yourself is not warmly received here at Dunwall Tower,” the Empress said. Her Royal Protector moved quietly, closer to her side. “Yet, here you are. I’m sure you have a story for us,” Jessamine’s face was serene, an expression jarringly similar to her portrait circulating on every postal stamp.

Hand to chest, Daud sketched a slow bow to the Empress. “Your highness, I will not waste your time. I bring bad news,” Daud said. “The nature of my business means familiarity with Dunwall's rotten core. No offense, of course, your highness. Unfortunately for you, that rotten core is too close to home. Someone from the Tower wants me to kill you.”

Her body stiffening, Jessamine abandoned her hostess facade. Daud realised his error, but it was too late to take back his words.

The rest happened quickly. She gestured a command. Without hesitation, her bodyguard flew into action, firing his crossbow at Daud’s head. At the first sign of movement, Daud let years of experience take over.

In an instant, Daud moved alone in a still scene. He’d called upon the Outsider’s mark to stop time. Barely.

Cursing, he plucked the crossbow bolt that time held airborne.

It was a finger's span from its final destination in his neck.

"The gossip mill was right. I’m losing my touch,” Daud muttered under his breath. He approached the bodyguard across the time-suspended room. Corvo. Even after years of familiarity with Attano as a public figure, he still thought it was a damn strange name for a Serkonan.

Daud failed to appreciate being shot at, but the part of him that had trained dozens of killers knew an impressive quickdraw when he saw one. He glanced back at the Empress, whose eyes held fire even when bent time had made all the world cold. She lived up to her reputation, too. Decisive. Hadn’t wasted a second to want him dead.

Daud winced again at his fool’s choice of words, muttering darkly as he worked on disarming Corvo. “Outsider's eyes. I should have started with small talk. Asked about the kid. How her highness’ day has been. Perhaps if she’d sampled last year’s Tyvian red.” Roughly patting down the Royal Protector’s boots, Daud pulled away Corvo’s last knife and cast it to the floor, where it landed with a distorted clatter at the Empress’ frozen feet.

Daud returned to where he’d been, working his jaw loose so that his face appeared, once again, impassive. Time resumed like the stutter of a broken audiograph. Daud continued speaking as though he had not personally disarmed the bodyguard just before.

He held up the crossbow bolt like he’d snatched it from the air by skill alone. Let them make what they wanted of it.

“I’m not here to kill you, your highness. Nor did I come here to be your Royal Protector’s pincushion. I’m here on business, so I’ve taken some measures to ensure the continuation of my usefulness to you.” He flicked the bolt to the floor. By the void, he never got tired of that time stop trick, risky as it was. Never failed to make contracts land on his desk.

Jessamine stood slowly, a hand stilling Corvo’s knife. Wait. A knife? How had Daud missed a knife?

“Tell me why you’re here, then get out. Take your heretical tricks with you,” she said, arms crossed.

“One minute and I’ll go. I am here to strike a deal with you, Empress Jessamine Kaldwin. Privately. My ‘agreement’ with Hiram Burrows has come to an end. I know you have little reason to trust the word of an assassin. But Burrows plans on seizing the power of the crown.”

“What proof do you have?” Corvo’s voice was abrupt, his dark eyes untrusting. The Empress’ brow furrowed.

“What proof would you accept from my hand?” Daud responded quietly. "In your place, Empress, I would accept nothing from me. But Attano, I’d bet my last coin that you won't search long for proof. Considering his job, Burrows is not a careful man. A paranoid, orderly man, yes, but a careful man? No.”

“You come unbidden into my home, disarm my protector, and accuse one of my retainers of treachery? And you bring nothing to support your claims?” Jessamine asked, fury boiling beneath her composure.

“I have reason to believe that you need to act quickly. Leave a flask of Gristol Cider on this ledge if you want to continue this discussion,” Daud said. He left much as he’d arrived, transversing out the window.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Hands in pockets, Daud walked back towards base across the rooftops of the Flooded District. That had gone badly. Unsettlingly badly.

Billie Lurk materialised in a cloud of void ash and fell into step with him. “I swear we had a surcharge for letting our targets know about their impending loss of life,” she spoke as though thinking out loud.

Daud had known that Lurk would show up. She could never resist putting in her two coin’s worth, and beyond that, had a true gift for appearing every time he screwed up. This contract for Jessamine had been a point of contention between them. “Didn’t I scrap that? Makes our job harder, barely worthwhile intimidation. Hard to price too,” he said with a shrug, knowing where this was going.

“Know what the customer can afford, then double it,” Billie recited, imitating Daud’s gravelled tone. “So Daud. Tell me. What’s an Empress worth?”

“Lurk,” he said, slowing his pace. “Outsider knows that there’s always work for an assassin. Plague, flood, civil war - doesn't matter. But Burrows assumes I’ll serve him the Empire on a platter. And he thinks the threat of an army of Overseers will help me see the wisdom in putting him on the throne. All I know is, she's not worth getting tangled up in that.”

“What if she says no?”

“She won’t. But if she says no, then we find some other way to make ends meet. So be it.”

“Why let Burrows play god? Kill him yourself. I’m sure he can learn a lesson about crossing the Whalers... with his last breaths,” she said, impatient.

Daud had days ago made the mistake of letting her stand guard on the negotiations with Burrows. As soon as they’d transversed out of the pub, she had gripped his arm, repeating the figure in equal parts shock and excitement. Lurk couldn’t get the number out of her head. She could barely go an hour without adding new things to the list of what they could do with that money. New mattresses, new boots, repairing their leaking roof, even pointing out they could buy a legitimate business if they wanted to. He’d accidentally slipped on his strategy of silence at the business idea, protesting that there’d be no sense in having a permanent address if they had royal blood on their hands. Lurk had a glint in her eye after he’d spoken up, as though her aim was to get under his skin rather than make a point about the base's disrepair. She would be the death of him, he was sure of it.

“You’ve heard Burrows lately. I’d say he was delusional but it’s clear that the City Watch is under his thumb, whether Kaldwin realises it or not. His rapport with the High Overseer is nothing to sneeze at, either,” he said, not for the first time.

“Are you sure they call you Knife? All I hear is the words of a scared old man,” Billie’s voice was flat, even through the Whaler mask distortion.

Daud snorted in response. “Look, I will pay that Burrows has handed us our biggest contract ever. I'm sure the Whalers would love to make a joke about size here, but to me the whole thing stinks of bad business. Overseers and officers are nothing new for us. But the plague? Burrows doesn’t care, he’ll destroy this city. Only question is, will it be bloodshed, or blood spilled from the eyes?” 

Billie crouched over the roof’s ledge, and tossed a piece of broken tile at a hagfish below. “I just don’t understand what that has to do with us.”

He sat beside her, watching the ripples in the stagnant, murky water. “I won’t tip years of my work into chaos over one contract. You'll thank me, years from now. Go ahead to the base, and tell Denman he’s to spend tomorrow looking for Gristol Cider in the window, at the south wing of Dunwall Tower.”

She stood, looking down at him for a moment before she half-bowed and disappeared.

* * *

_ Corvo _

  
  


This was a ruse. A distraction. How easy it would be for Daud to plant evidence in Burrows’ suites. Jess had laughed darkly after he had desperately tried to convince her of this, and told him that if Daud wanted her dead, her body would be cold by now. Corvo’s throat had closed, and he had simply nodded.

All of his guard instincts jangled at the wrongness of it, yet still he took her orders. It was a strategy that had not failed him yet.

And so, here he was. Corvo knelt at the royal spymaster’s desk, picking a locked drawer.

He felt ridiculous. He should be at Jess’ side. Or asleep, after closing all the windows and vents to Emily and Jess' rooms. At least if this was a fool’s errand and he found nothing, maybe he could try to claim the bounty on Daud’s head later.

A final click and he could feel the lock give. Corvo was in. It would at least be interesting to see what the Royal Spymaster was working on.

He took note of Burrows’ meticulous filing system before moving the catalogue of audiographs and documents. The spymaster micromanaged even his personal documents, Corvo mused, carrying an armful to Jess’ hideaway. He should bring a cloth to wipe down the bench free from fingerprints on the way back.

With Burrows out of office inspecting something at the Academy, he had time. Not that it mattered; if caught, he’d call it a test of Dunwall Tower’s security. Hiram would accuse him of being a foreign spy—not for the first time—and Jess would laugh. What’s the worst Burrows could do?

Corvo pulled the lamp to trigger the hidden door, ducking under the ornamental fireplace into Jess’ secret corner room. Dunwall Tower had pantries that were larger than this, but he loved it here. It smelled like old books and her perfume, and felt like his heart’s home. May as well be somewhere comfortable, given his evening plans.

Putting the stack down unceremoniously on Jess’ desk, he felt a headache coming on. How long had it been since he last slept? Perhaps first he should sneak to the kitchens and brew coffee.

* * *

_ Jessamine _

  
  


“I thought I’d find you in here. Callista and Emily said they haven't seen you today. How did you go, my love?” Jessamine asked, closing the mechanism to the hidden room behind her. She leaned against the back of Corvo's seat, and traced circles across his upper back. 

She had spent the day with her trade advisors, clinging to details about tariffs and harbour upgrades. Anything to keep her mind off the way the assassin—the legendary Knife of Dunwall, no less—had appeared in her rooms as though he’d been there all along. He hadn’t even needed to move to disarm Corvo.

It would be some time before she could settle comfortably in her own rooms again. Perhaps she’d doze by Emily’s bed tonight. Perhaps she’d call on Callista.

Surrounded by documents, audiographs and six empty coffee cups, Corvo slouched at her desk, his eyes blank when he met her gaze. His face seemed lined, darkened by more than poor sleep.

Her heart sank. Surely no. But that expression on Corvo’s face could only mean one thing.

“Jess. I’m sorry. Hiram’s a traitor. Here,” he said, handing her documents. She was grateful that he was never one to mince words, but now the word traitor seemed to linger in the air, like a cold thing in her room that was normally so inviting.

She forced herself to release the breath that she didn’t know she held. “These are prototypes for some kind of vaporising device. And, a safe room for the Tower...? A Poverty Eradication Plan?”

Jess didn’t quite understand what she was looking at yet, but she continued reading. Corvo leaned his forehead against her velvet sleeves. She turned a page.

“‘Lord Regent’? Oh, Outsider’s frozen nips,” she hissed.

“It might be best that you hear his plan in his own words,” Corvo said. The audiograph player was already loaded, his finger hovering over the switch as he looked to her for assent. She nodded.

Together, they listened to Hiram Burrows lay out his plan to bring about prosperity, starting with a plague and next, the Empress’ head.

* * *

  
  


Jessamine saw red. She slammed the decanter of Gristol Cider on the bluestone window ledge. The base shattered, leaving little else but an elegant stopper.

A knock at the door. “Empress Kaldwin, your highness? I heard a sound, is it all well?” a voice called out.

“Quite well, just an accident! I’ll have Margaret see to this later. Thank you Jarred,” she said with false cheer. A muffled affirmative response carried through from behind the door.

Her face dropped. In the hush of the south wing’s private meeting room, Corvo stepped in to hold her, the soft felt of his navy jacket familiar and comforting against her check. She could see the anger in his eyes and in the set of his jaw. She knew his mind was ticking over, but he kept his thoughts to himself for her sake.

It crossed her mind, to send him out to fetch a Royal Spymaster’s head for her. But no. That was not the leader she was, and it was not the leader Dunwall needed. A simple solution would not make this go away. A Lord Regent was not selected without supporters, and a man like Hiram was not emboldened without support.

Jessamine sighed into Corvo’s shoulder and released the grit of her teeth, pressing a kiss to his neck, lipstick be damned. She tried to focus on him. He smelled as he always did, woodsmoke, spice, and something metallic. A welcome distraction, but not enough.

“Emily can’t lose you—I can’t lose you. The Empire can’t lose you. Tell me what you’re planning, Jess?” he murmured into her hair.

A price on her head and a plan to steal her throne. She had known about Burrows' schemes a few scant minutes, yet still Corvo assumed she saw a way out of this. His faith in her was staggering, sometimes.

“Long ago, my father told me that bad things come in three, and I had dismissed his superstition. He would laugh to see us now. The plague, false accusations circling about me throughout the Empire, and now a plot that would see me dead. A plan?” she chuckled humorlessly, “my love, you think highly of me. The plan for today is to not focus on my regrets, of which I have too many. Today we speak with Daud, and decide if I will work with a criminal. Then tomorrow, I plan. How fitting, that the man they call Knife isn’t the one with the knife to my back.”

“Let’s not stop considering him a knife to your ribs, though,” Corvo said mildly.

“Corvo. Please.”

“Sorry. Suspicion comes naturally, in times like these."

“Suspicion seems to come naturally to you, in general,” she said with a tired laugh, trying and failing to bring levity to the moment. The threat of assassination was a constant sword dangling over her head, even when all was right and well.

“Suspicion keeps me on my toes, which keeps you and Emily safe, my stars, my sunli—”

“If the Lord Protector with the suspicious streak pleases to turn around, I think there’s an assassin in the Tower,” Daud said. Jess spun. He leaned near the window on the other side of the room, feigning interest in her late father’s taxidermied Blood Oxen.

“Daud.” Corvo growled low, more a threat than a greeting.

“Daud,” Jessamine said quietly, without skipping a beat, “so Hiram had planned my death, and worse. You came to me offering aid, yesterday. There was ample evidence to support your claims.” She paused. What do the people of Dunwall need from her, in this?

Was it far too late to try? No. It was never too late.

“Hiram has surrounded himself with allies. He plans to win the parliamentary vote to rule as Lord Regent after my… removal. But I cannot tell who believes that they are helping Hiram because of their duty to the crown, and who knowingly would betray Dunwall. I cannot act without knowing who and what I act against.”

“You are as wise as they say, your highness,” Daud bowed, “I have access to information, and can offer my unique talents. Plus, around the clock service.”

“Care to explain your special talents, assassin?” Corvo said, teeth gritted.

“Not particularly, your Protectorship. Trade secrets. I’m sure you understand.”

“What’s the catch?” Corvo asked, uncomfortable and keen to cut the conversation short.

“The catch is measured in coin,” Daud paused, before naming a figure. “Half upfront. Deal of the decade, considering your savings in spymaster expenses.”

There seemed so few avenues for discreet work at her fingertips, that Jess did not deliberate long. Indeed, he was right, all of her avenues for discreet work should have all come under spymaster expenses. The thought made her feel bitter. As though this had anything to do with price.

“An allyship forged in the metal of coin is as strong as any other, in strange times,” Jessamine said. She looked Daud up and down, feeling as though she was seeing him for the first time. Truly, she did not expect a sales pitch from a man who seemed as invented as any of the stories told to make children behave.

“We think alike, your highness. There is one more thing, other than the contract for you to sign.” Daud spoke slowly. “I have a base of operations that Burrows knows about. And he knows that my… unconventional methods have attracted unwanted interest from the Overseers. We are perfectly capable of protecting our own, but I would rather it not come to that.”

“You mean you’re being blackmailed,” Corvo said.

“Thank you, Attano,” Daud glanced at the Royal Protector, before turning to meet Jess’ eyes. “Yes. I’m not here looking for a pardon or your protection, your highness, but I would appreciate help redirecting Overseer Campbell’s attention. A militia of zealots and their rabid mutts aren’t the neighbourly welcome we hoped for when we moved in.”

Ah, and there it was: the real reason he was here. Jess did not get the sense that she was being lied to, although she had good reason to second guess her instincts today. Still, as Empress of the Isles, her relationship with the Warfare Overseers was not something she could abandon without caution. Many of her citizens found solace in their teachings, and they were perhaps the only military force equal to her own. “Very well. I can look into this, but understand that my priorit—”

Daud held up a gloved palm, dismissing her concerns. “Our goals align. Respectfully, your highness, I’m going to nee—”

“Daud. I’m glad we agree that employees of the Empire don’t make a habit of speaking over me. Your deal is struck. Corvo, the coin pouch. Please, Daud, sit. Do you drink whiskey? Tea?”

"Tea is fine," Daud confirmed, before settling into the low couch with the careless confidence of a man who has nothing to fear. Corvo poured two cups of tea, while Jessamine measured her silence, watching the assassin across from her. Daud seemed surprised to see Corvo’s graceful serving manner, or perhaps he was surprised to be served at all.

After Daud had left to rendezvous with Corvo later, Jess noticed that he’d not touched his cup of tea. She tucked this away as a new piece of information about the infamous assassin: he certainly played things safe, for a man who feared nothing.


	2. Chapter 2

_Corvo_

Orange splashes of sunset coloured the grey waters of Rudshore District, as one of the Whalers casted off downriver again, leaving Corvo alone with the assassin.

The late Emperor Theodanis was fond of giving advice unasked, and Corvo remembered something that the old Emperor would always tell Jess: plan slowly, move quickly. On days like today, he was certain Jess only internalised the ‘move quickly’ part.

Earlier, she had paced in frustration as he tugged on his old guardsman boots, saying that she couldn’t respond to a threat without information. She wasn’t wrong. Corvo was certain of two things: one, they needed to move quickly before Burrows realised that the Empress knew of his treachery; and two, Daud represented all the clues they had. Daud had been evasive about why he’d requested Corvo come with him, but Jess was desperate enough to send Corvo out.

Heading inland, Corvo and Daud trudged through silt. They hadn’t spoken a word since leaving Dunwall Tower.

He was trying to not show it, but his thoughts were a senseless cacophony, like a symphony without a conductor where each musician played a different piece. _What if Daud was—why would he leave Jess now—how did he never notice Burrows—what would happen to Emily if—what if the guards were—what if it was Callista who—_

Corvo tried to silence the useless onrush of his thoughts by focusing on what was around him. Inhale. Rudshore. Not that long ago it was upscale, a blend of modern and old, and better maintained than anywhere in the city. Now it smelled of decay. Mud. Whale oil. The acrid stench of river krusts.

Rudshore was mostly abandoned after the flooding. After the looting had stopped, only those with no other option stayed. And then the plague had passed through, devastating what population remained.

In parliament, the politicians of Dunwall had debated disaster recovery for the Rudshore area. Corvo stood behind Jessamine that day, her voice raised above the din, impassioned, refusing to entertain Burrows’ idea of sending armed forces in to "deal with" the Weepers. She said they weren't Weepers, but her citizens. Burrows had argued that force was the only way to stop the plague from spreading. Then some snide voice rang out, saying Dunwall citizens had little chance of surviving the plague when Jessamine seemed to love Weepers so much. Shocked to hear such blatant slander in parliament, Corvo choked in frustration as he failed to identify who had spoken, while all around them laughter echoed. That day’s parliamentary session went to waste, and Burrows had stood tall, satisfied.

A red rage threatened to blind him. Weepers. Jessamine’s people, ordinary citizens who had the misfortune to contract the plague that _Burrows had caused_ . That bastard. That _bastard_ —

“I’ll admit I’m no good with smalltalk. My job is generally more hands on. Usually a little more creative,” Daud drawled, pulling Corvo out of the torrent of his thoughts.

“You know damn well I wouldn’t be here if not for the Empress,” Corvo said, consciously unclenching his fists. He would give anything to undo the flood, the plague, the threat to Jess and Emily. He wished he could think straight—but no, Jess needed to know what was happening past the Tower that she couldn’t leave, and being here was something he could do for her.

“That’s true in more ways than one, isn’t it? I know a Serkonan accent when I hear one. Bodyguard, we’re both working to prevent the same thing here,” Daud said, “but I’d hardly recognise myself if I couldn’t hit an easy target.” The assassin disappeared. Corvo startled as he heard movement behind him.

Corvo’s blade moved fast. The glint in Daud's eye left as quickly as it appeared as he stepped back in a blur of red movement, unnaturally light on his feet and far from Corvo’s reach. Teeth bared, Corvo shifted into an uneasy guard.

Daud’s empty gloved hands were high in the air in mock surrender. “Alright, I’ve had my fun with you. Good reflexes don’t mean you should pick a fight you can’t win. Save trying to kill me for after you save your Jess.”

“Keep her name out of your mouth, heretic bastard,” Corvo hissed.

“Fine. We have irreconcilable hostilities. Put that in your mission report. Focus, bodyguard. You’ve been away from the guard barracks too long if my bullshit is getting on your nerves.”

Corvo opened and closed his mouth, then slowly sheathed his blade. His words stung with the truth. He spent most of his time with Jess and Emily, naturally—it was expected of the Royal Protector, and he wouldn’t want to live any other way. He still trained with the rotating guards at Dunwall Tower, but that was nothing like the rough camaraderie of an assigned squad. Sparring with near-strangers was different to shit-stirring with your team to kill hours of tedium.

He may be right to have his guard up around Daud, but not so far up that the man standing behind him should get under his skin. He’d worked with mercenaries before. He’d worked with assholes before, too, void, more often than not. This wasn’t that different, though the Knife of Dunwall seemed fond of pushing his luck.

“Alright. Let’s go," he said, resigned. He needed to calm down, focus. Corvo inhaled, thinking of Jess and Emily. The sooner this was done, the sooner he’d go home. Maybe he could get back in time to read to Emily before she fell asleep tonight.

Daud, expressionless behind his scars, transversed in a smattering of void-ash to warehouse scaffolding above, gesturing for him to follow.

Unsettled, not used to seeing such casual use of heretical powers, Corvo climbed the stairs three at a time to catch up.

* * *

_Daud_

  
  


"This is what you couldn't explain to the Empress? Dead Overseers?" Corvo asked, nudging a grenade pin with his boot. They stood on an old pedestrian bridge that led to Rudshore Station.

Daud remembered the way it used to bustle with activity in better times—he’d have avoided this route at all costs, once. Now it was littered with Overseer corpses, their bodies fallen like forgotten toys. His Whalers hadn’t had the time or inclination to clean up.

"Please, feel welcome to admire my men’s handiwork. You’re bankrolling it now. But no, I’m here to intercept a delivery of sorts. You’re here to observe.”

Engaging void gaze, Daud watched intently a crumbling warehouse that backed onto the Wrenhaven, with Corvo crouched well out of arm’s reach.

The last warm rays of sunset faded into smoggy night, as they waited on a metal balcony.

It felt wise to keep Corvo at a distance. Daud almost regretted earlier preying on the man’s frayed nerves with a transversal. The bodyguard was more highly strung than he’d expected, though Daud felt he should have guessed. Even without his questionable relationship with the Empress and her spawn, no-one would relish hearing that they’d been a few days from failing spectacularly at their high profile job. Well, if nothing else, at least now they were roughly even for Corvo’s bolt that nearly ended Daud’s life yesterday.

Corvo’s eyes were dark, intent. For someone so clearly wound up, even his hands were still, as though he was part of the night itself. Dissolving into the shadows like this was a skill that was difficult to teach and learn. Though, on second thoughts, maybe it was less impressive when he considered that anyone paid to stand still behind an Empress for most of their waking hours... was very likely good at standing still.

An approaching boat’s engine interrupted the lapping of water at building walls. So much for void gaze. “Here,” Daud spoke low. “Burrows and Campbell go way back. Goes without saying that Burrows has Campbell’s full support. That’s a lot of concentrated power between them—the guard and the Overseers. Almost the entirety of the organised forces in Dunwall. But my ears on the ground told me something interesting. Campbell has some peculiar tastes. Not my business, at least, not until Chester came across this.”

“What?” Corvo asked.

Daud gestured. The boat’s engine was cut. In the cloak of night, a large figure heaved a body out of the small boat with some difficulty, leaving the prone form atop crates. The silhouette lit a cigar, and leaned against a brick wall.

“Wait. Are you telling me that’s Campbell?”

“Yeah. A few workers at the Golden Cat had the bright idea to try to blackmail him, threatening to go public with his _adherence_ to the strictures. This week he’s been kidnapping them, one by one, and dumping them here unconscious. Elaborate. Intimidation, we think,” Daud murmured as he watched the High Overseer, whose stocky profile was backlit by floodlight, casting a long shadow down the murky street as he took a drag.

Daud could almost relax. Despite the volatile man beside him, despite getting cocky again and almost getting himself stabbed, despite the High Overseer perilously close to his base... he was pleased that dragging the Kaldwin’s bodyguard out here was worth it. Corvo would serve as an eye witness to the High Overseer’s unlikely crimes, and could report back to the Empress. She’d believe Corvo, and they could have Campbell arrested. Most of the military might behind Burrows’ little plan would be neutralised, and Daud’s base would be secure again. Neat and tidy.

Maybe he’d even thank the Outsider, next time that bastard dropped by. If he dropped by. Finally, something was going right.

“The first woman we found wandering around by herself. When she told us about how Campbell spends his time, we thought she was shitting us. Next day, Campbell’s dropping off another woman, Beth. Chester caught him in the act. She came to, was scared shitless, but turns out she’d been collaborating with four other workers at the Golden Cat. Figured there’d be another today. Campbell is such a bastard that I’m surprised the Outsider doesn’t visit _him_ for fun. We figure this is intimidation, since no one would believe—wait, Corvo?”

Corvo looked up at Daud after hearing his name, expression distant as he loaded up a crossbow bolt.

“Outsider’s crooked cock, man, what are you doing? I said we—”

Corvo braced against the metal balustrade and fired. Shocked, Daud’s transversal was too late, knocking into the Royal Protector’s elbow.

The shot missed, clattering against brick. In the near distance, Campbell startled at the noise, hurtling back into the boat and starting the engine.

Unthinking, Daud grabbed Corvo by the collar as though he were a new Whaler recruit. “I said, _observe_ ,” he growled. “Kill this guy, another High Overseer takes his place, they respawn like lizard tails with exactly the same amount of brain cells, and speaking of brain cell—”

In one fluid motion, Corvo ripped Daud’s hands from his jacket, forcing his arm down into a fluid lock. Daud had no choice but to transverse, or fall face-forward. As Daud reappeared, Corvo swung himself to the walkway below, running with soft footfall toward Campbell’s boat.

Reorienting himself and rubbing his wrists, Daud started running and transversing across rooftops, his shadow long as he tried to catch up to Corvo. He issued a general summons to any Whalers available, and they materialised one by one, at first confused and still, but seeing Daud in the distance broke into the same run-and-transverse that they learned from him.

In the suspension that hung between transversals, Daud couldn’t help but wonder if he had underestimated Corvo’s skill, or overestimated his common sense.

* * *

_Corvo_

  
  


Corvo ran, letting his body do the thinking. It felt good to move.

So, the assassin bastard had dragged him here to serve his own agenda. Of course he’d be interested in saving his own hide by going after Campbell first, regardless of the benefit to the Crown.

Logically, though his mind shied away from it, Corvo knew there was merit to taking down Campbell. Not least because it was dangerous to leave someone on such good terms with Hiram Burrows in charge of a militia as strong as the Warfare Overseers.

But he had left Jess and Em in the Tower, knowing there was a plot to dethrone them. For what? To witness a kidnapping? Did Daud think he would nod and return home afterwards?

Enough. He’d had enough, and Corvo’s adrenaline had spiked when Daud had dared to touch him, but now he revelled in it, not caring what it meant. Something primal—something more volatile than whale oil—fuelled him towards his target. Campbell.

Finally, something he wasn’t powerless to stop. Finally, something he could reach out and fix.

Leaning into a powerful sprint high above the flooded streets, he eyed the distance to where Campbell knelt over in the small boat.

A split second decision. Could he make the jump—yes—only if he jumped—

Now. 

Corvo leapt off the walkway, hands outstretched for Campbell’s neck, landing both feet on the other man’s back, momentum dragging the pair into the murky depth of floodwater with a splash. The small dinghy rocked dangerously close to capsizing. 

Underwater, Corvo landed a punch to the man’s temple, Campbell’s scrambling ending as abruptly as it started. The water darkened.

There. That felt better.

The adrenaline mixed with blind rage that had coursed through his veins faded, as the shocking cold of the water seeped into his bones. Corvo surfaced. The night seemed darker, more still than before.

Looking up from the water, he found himself surrounded by figures in whaler masks and long oilskin coats. The masks turned to him as one, as he waded back to a stable surface. Two Whalers were already dragging Campbell’s form up from the water. Corvo hauled himself out of the floodwater, his coat sodden, his boots waterlogged and slowing his movements.

Daud stood over him, silent, arms crossed.

Soaked through and cold to the bone, Corvo suddenly felt weary, nights of sleeplessness catching up to him.  
  


* * *

_Billie_

  
  
  


The High Overseer, passed out in her room. 

Billie couldn’t decide if that was the setup, or the punchline of a joke. She’d have to workshop the details later. Right now, Daud had left her an unconscious man to babysit. Or... not. Looking at the man’s form, she could see he wasn’t going anywhere.

Did Daud find it funny to leave him in her room? Probably did, come to think.

When Daud arrived back, he walked past her and suggested she check her room, “to see what the royal guard dog dragged in.” She assumed he meant the Royal Protector, Attano. Who, for whatever reason, Daud had allowed to follow the Whalers back to base.

Billie didn’t like any of it.

Daud’s order to keep an eye on Campbell be damned, she wasn’t going to miss how tonight played out. Offering the Whaler’s services to the Empress was one shitshow, allowing a glorified city watch guard to their base was entirely another. Corvo Attano was worse than an officer, he was a _lord_.

What the hell was Daud thinking? Did he have an assassination contract for the bodyguard that she wasn’t aware of? May as well invite the Empress in while he’s at it. At least that would earn them some very nice coin.

She heard the other Whalers return to base. The common room rang with laughter and anecdotes of being summoned by Daud, only to see the Empress’ bodyguard fling himself off a building at the High Overseer. Apparently, the pair had landed in the floodwater, but only the Royal Protector's head had bobbed back up. The Whalers would get mileage out of this story, having heard the same terrible line “High Overseer? More like… Low Underwater” a few times, mostly to groans and a few ashamed chortles (which didn’t seem to stop Denman from repeating himself). 

The whole thing sounded like a tall tale to Billie, but when even Thomas had confirmed it when she asked, well. She didn't know what to make of it.

Checking that High Overseer Campbell was locked in just in case he regained consciousness, Billie transversed to Daud’s room, slipping in unnoticed before settling onto one of the high windows. She surveyed the two men from her vantage point.

Pity she didn’t have her hip flask. Shit, Daud even looked _flustered._ This was going to be good.

Billie considered the seated figure. His back was to her, but she figured it had to be the famous Corvo Attano. Huh. Below her sat evidence that not even the extravagances of the Tower could prevent you from looking like a drowned rat after a dip in the floodwaters. Probably smelled like a drowned rat too. Ha. Fame only goes so far.

She watched Daud ramble, the words rolling off his tongue like he was narrating a play only he could see. Billie had noticed this habit of his, which always resurfaced when he was in over his head. Which was uncommon, until recently. It wasn’t a good sign.

“—have been easy, Corvo, all you had to do was shut up and watch, you’d have given the Empress all the leverage she needs to make Campbell’s life hard, so that he wouldn’t be helping his bud Burrows out with his quaint treason. What the hell were you thinking? Taking down Campbell now doesn’t help either of us. I don’t want an army at my door, you can’t afford to risk a civil war. And what happens when Burrows realises his High Overseer pal is missing? That weasel will panic when he finds out his most powerful all—”

Billie glanced back over to Corvo, who didn’t react to Daud’s scathing monologue. He sat there, looking damp and disarrayed despite his fashionable haircut and tailored clothes, seemingly unaffected by the Knife of Dunwall’s rebuke.

She tilted her head, watching the moon over Dunwall from the giant hole in Daud’s roof. Come to think, it was hard to name anyone who wasn’t shit-scared of Daud. Maybe the Empress’ thick-headed bodyguard was just dumb enough to be an exception. Probably should have guessed, based on the watch guards she’d known. Most couldn’t tell their gloves from their boots.

Interrupting Daud’s stream of consciousness, Corvo suddenly spoke over him. “What do we tell Jess?”

“Couldn’t you have thought of that before you took a flying leap at the man who leads the Overseer army,” Daud rasped. He spread his fingers out across his desk in thought, shoulders tense. “You’re going to tell her that the High Overseer is a kidnapper, a fornicator, a liar, a hypocrite, and almost certainly a traitor. Tell her you knocked him out and now he’s wasting space among my assassins. How does that sound?”

“Not good, actually.” Corvo pinched the bridge of his nose. “I wish—” 

Daud tilted his head at Corvo, expression unchanged.

“Wish I wasn’t the only thing standing in the way of Jess and Em.” Corvo exhaled, before tucking his hands under his armpits and huddling in on himself. He couldn’t be that cold. “They can’t leave the tower. I didn’t think there could be anything worse than a threat I can’t fight, like the plague. I was wrong. Betrayed by someone I passed in the hall every day for years, and if I quietly remove him, Jess will—”

Billie leaned forward to catch what Corvo was saying as his voice dropped to a murmur. Daud must have caught sight of her movement. He looked up, and they locked eyes over Corvo’s head, the tightening of Daud’s expression unmistakable.

Damn, that was good while it lasted. Time to move out. Last time Daud gave her that look, she’d come to regret it. Later, the Whalers had drawn lots on who would take a lengthy stakeout that no one wanted, and she’d _somehow_ ended up pulling the short straw from Daud’s fist. Daud had mirthlessly wondered aloud at Billie’s mysterious bad luck, and sent her to stand on a rooftop for ten hours. She’d paid him back twofold though by stealing his left boot, leaving him to walk around base in his hideous stolen sheepskin slippers for two days before she ‘found’ his boot.

Fist to chest, she nodded once and transversed out. Who knew there’d come a day where Daud would stand there listening to the Empress’ dog complain about his gilded kennel?

Void, they better be making good money off this.

Fighting the urge to head outside and climb back in over the mezzanine where Daud would have less chance to spot her, instead, she decided to go check on how the other woman that Campbell had kidnapped was going. Maybe she’d be willing to talk about it. Better yet, maybe she’d have useful gossip.

The High Overseer’s kidnapping victim from yesterday, Beth, was thoroughly spooked when they found her. Couldn’t blame her for looking like shit when she’d managed to piss off a man like Campbell. The Whalers had helped her get back upstream to her family. Billie, having an inkling of what Daud was up to, suggested quietly to Beth that it was best she lay low and keep her eye on the Dunwall Courier before going back to work at the Golden Cat. Best to stay out of the way until Campbell was distracted. A man like that, it was more surprising that he hadn’t started with extreme measures.

Billie had thought that Daud would want to bring evidence of Campbell’s indiscretions to the Crown, but damn. It was hard to say if their unplanned capture of Campbell was a boon or a nightmare. The last thing they needed was more Overseer attention.

Billie wasn’t sure if the woman that the Whalers picked up today would be ready for a chat with an assassin. She was probably traumatised.

Yet another stranger in their midst tonight. Billie had often tried to make the case that the Whalers shouldn’t bring in strays. What if one day someone planted a spy in their midst? But Daud wouldn’t hear of it. Billie’s stomach curdled, wondering at herself, teeth gritting at just how stupid it was for her to mention the word spy. Why would she, of all people, voluntarily mention the possibility of infiltration?

She knocked on the door to the room Thomas had offered to the woman they’d (sort of) rescued tonight. She took a breath, before pitching her voice to sound welcoming. “Hello? Are you awake? My name is Billie, I’m checking you’re alright.”

“Billie?” came the response, slow with recognition. A young woman appeared, her dark, braided hair swung with bright beads. The woman’s face brightened immediately. She beamed, pulling Billie into a hug.

Billie’s expression of shock was hidden by Aya’s shoulder, and her hands twitched at her sides before she remembered she should hug her back. It was good to see her, but this was awkward. “Shit, Aya? I haven’t seen you in years, how are you? I mean. Sorry. Are you ok?”

Aya shrugged. “A few bruises that I’ve found. Lingering headache, tooth feels loose. I’ll be fine. Someone told me your Whalers nabbed Thaddeus? Where is he?” Aya asked. Billie considered correcting Aya on the Whalers not being hers, but she let it be. It didn’t hurt.

“Thaddeus? Oh, Campbell. He’s in my bed, would you believe. Unconscious still.”

Aya looked pained. “Yeah, well, he was paying to be in my bed too until this week. The only Overseer I’ve ever bedded that wasn’t completely boring too, but _what_ an arrogant bastard. I should have known he wouldn’t care about his hypocrisy.” She exhaled, shoulders slumping into a resigned shrug. “Hindsight is clearer than Tyvian spirits I suppose.”

“Damn. I’m sorry. The woman you worked with, Beth? She told us about Campbell not agreeing to your terms?” She turned to Aya for confirmation, searching her friend’s face. She wondered if she could consider them friends, really. Even with chapped lips and a bruised face, Aya still managed to look beautiful. Billie looked away quickly, self conscious about having let her eyes linger under these circumstances.

Aya had been prone to making friends with street kids, some ten years ago, much to her parent’s dismay. When Billie was younger, it seemed like the perfect friendship. She’d come by, chat to Aya, and dart off to resell whatever she ‘found’ at Aya’s parent’s floristry. It was easy to find buyers, she’d just target the noblemen in suits, for their lapels or their sweethearts. Often, she’d make enough coin for bread or tinned food, which she could stretch out over a few days.

“I should have thought about it. All five of us got to talking one night, and it seemed like a good idea. Apparently not,” Aya said distantly. She turned to face Billie, brightening. “How’s that side hustle of yours going, handling good stuff on the down low?”

Billie nodded. “Going good. Been thinking of switching it up though, and dealing in elixir. Barely had much time to myself lately, between trade, the Whalers and the cov- and the trade.” It must be getting late, now, for Billie to have stumbled. It was definitely not a good idea to mention Brigmore Manor in Daud’s base.

Aya tilted her head to one side. “Since it’s late, and your bed is occupied...?” Aya asked, the ghost of a smile tugging at the edges of her lips. Rather than question the circumstances, Billie closed the door behind her, and reached for Aya’s waist.

Maybe Billie and Aya lived different lives now, and maybe they were never close, but some things were always straightforward between them.

* * *

_Daud_

  
  


Corvo had somehow fallen asleep in the chair, his dark fringe covering his face.

Whatever in the void had motivated Corvo’s late night rambles, Daud suspected part of it was having a stranger to talk to that he never planned to see again. Funny though, the “overshare then fall asleep” trick was usually exclusive to children and drunkards, but Corvo seemed sober. Daud didn’t care enough to judge him, plus, it was a good sign that Corvo wasn’t planning on sticking around.

Good. Daud had never intended to work with the man. Corvo was less an ally, more a liability. Particularly given his status as a glorified guardsman, title and all, a walking representative of the ruling class… while Daud’s operations weren’t legal anywhere. Combined with his impulsive behaviour tonight, Corvo seemed like risk personified. Daud could hear his own words to the novices: it was the mark of the professional to identify and avoid risk.

He should really stop giving out good advice, it always came back to haunt him.

Daud drummed his fingers on his desk. Not that he could completely avoid this risk. He’d voluntarily offered his professional services to the Crown. No sense in regretting that now. Billie had made her case and she was right, but it was a fool who turned away from the potential coin that someone like the Empress could offer. Billie would get used to it.

The Empress needed someone to neutralise Hiram Burrows and his henchmen, preferably well before he realised that she was aware of his scheme, and the Whalers were perfect for the job. He didn’t doubt he could solve this one - he knew the city like the back of his hand. Void, he knew the city better than the back of his hand, he had no idea what that mark really was. Compared to that, Dunwall was easy to understand.

He just wished he had more hints about who Burrows’ allies were.

So. Thaddeus Campbell, the High Overseer who treated the Strictures like a to-do list, was now his prisoner. How could he maximise his coin on this one?

He crunched the numbers in his head. If he did need to focus on the Empress’ safety for a few months, the Whalers wouldn’t go into the red as long as they kept up a steady stream of mundane contracts. That wouldn’t be an issue, and didn’t require his oversight. Thomas had proven his worth as a contract negotiator. Billie had the insight and the brains to run this operation, too, should it ever come to that.

And maybe he would need it. He’d not had a visit from The Outsider in years now, which could either be very good or very bad, and hopefully indicated nothing about his lifespan.

Maybe he was getting predictable. Working budgets, planning jobs, gathering intel, training novices. Nothing to interest a bored, fickle god. Or so he reassured himself, when he stood waiting at Outsider shrines, the blackened purple of the Void illuminating silver scars on his empty hands.

But hearing nothing from the Outsider was not the same thing as having peace.

The more Daud stepped back from wetwork itself, the more he had time to think on decades of assassination contracts. He had no qualms about doing what must be done, and too much of his reputation was on the line to turn from the business now, but seeing his Whalers grow into men who left trails of blood in their wake… it left him cold.

Perhaps old age was leaving him sentimental. Daud dragged his palm down his face as he could hear his own words echoing back to him: sentimentality wouldn't pay the bills.

Daud turned to the mission plans he had pinned to his walls. He had functioned on small snatches of sleep for most of his life, and now, with the moon low over Dunwall, he worked on gathering all the leads he had.

* * *

_Billie_

  
  


Billie was lucky if she managed three hours of sleep. The sun was barely rising when she remembered she was meant to be babysitting a High Overseer. She untangled herself from Aya’s bronze curves and quietly slipped out, checking that Campbell still breathed before she felt the pull of Daud’s summons.

“Sir.” She materialised before him, briefly wishing she could remember where she left her mask and coat. Daud stood with his back to her, looking over the notes on his wall, his gloved hands clasped behind him. He didn’t turn to face her.

“Lurk. Thought you’d be up. I need your brain. What would you do with Thaddeus Campbell?”

“Apparently sir, I’d keep him in my bed.”

“Good chatting with you lieutenant, dismissed,” his voice was stony, but he glanced back at her with a glint of humour in his eye.

Billie grimaced at Corvo’s sleeping form. Their operations were private, and she liked it that way. Having a stranger nearby while they discussed strategy was unsettling. She didn’t like having new faces on base, but having a guardsman in Daud’s chambers—their engine room—was just plain _wrong_.

She transversed behind the desk and leaned into Daud’s ear, voice low. “Remind me why we didn’t just take the damn contract on the Empress again? The pay was unheard of. I’d have volunteered if you weren’t... up to it,” she said, watching his scarred face for a reaction.

“The Empress may have done too little, too late for the plague, but she’s not the cause of it. Killing her for Burrows’ sake would be like crowning a swarm of plague rats.”

“Funny to hear that from a man who has always advised us to stay away from politics and just do the job.”

“Funny for you to describe regicide as apolitical. Anyway, I said stay out of politics and don’t make things personal. I didn’t say be stupid.” he said. “Besides, we’re on the Kaldwin payroll now. That’s good coin.” Billie stood back from Daud, shaking her head. Useless trying to make a point when he got defensive like this. There was clearly still plenty of time to take the contract Burrows offered. Stubborn old man.

She turned to look at the notes, clippings and sketches on the walls. Huh. These were new. “A floorplan of the Golden Cat? Suddenly taking an interest in the arts?”

“I don’t have your enthusiasm or tastes, Billie.”

She snorted, moving to sit cross-legged on his desk. They stared at the notes he’d pinned to the wall, both with arms crossed. Billie took a breath, trying to focus despite the elephant in the room. Or guard dog, as it were.

“Logically, with two girls left to torment, Campbell would be back to the Golden Cat at least twice again this week. What made you think there would be more to it than his plan to intimidate the workers there?”

“There are never any coincidences in Dunwall, and I need information. Or, let me correct myself. Her highness the Empress of the Isles, Lady Jessamine Kaldwin, needs information to save her royal neck. If Campbell is at the Golden Cat frequently enough to piss off half the entertainers there, then he’s at least got someone letting him in and out. I bet he’s made friends, or close enough. We need to know who else he’s been chatting to if we want to cripple support for Hiram Burrows.” 

“Have you tried talking to Aya about this?” she asked him.

“Who? Oh. The one we saved just now. Right.”

“Just now? Yesterday, you mean. Have you slept?”

“Is she okay?” Daud asked, brows furrowed. Ignoring the question, as usual.

“Yeah. I’ll speak to her. You should sleep.” Daud grunted in response. Shaking her head, Billie left Daud to it.

Thinking of Aya, she swung by the kitchen pantry, tucking two pears into her pocket. She returned to Aya’s room, finding the woman repairing the clasps on her shoes. “You’re up early.” Billie raised a pear up, brow raised as a question.

Aya nodded, catching the pear. “Couldn’t sleep after you left, bad dreams. Maybe the Month of Timber will be luckier for me.”

“That’s the spirit. Say. If you’re up to it, could you help me with some questions about the Golden Cat?” Aya responded with a conspiratorial wink as she bit into the pear, patting the bed beside her as an invitation.

* * *

_Corvo_

  
  


He arrived back at the tower in the early afternoon, greeted blandly by guards. Crossing the bridge from the waterlock to the yard, he spotted Jess across the manicured tower gardens, standing cross-armed in the white gazebo she’d commissioned for hosting diplomatic gatherings.

“Corvo! You’re back!” Emily exclaimed while barreling towards him. Using her momentum, Corvo tossed her into the air before he pulled her into a hug. “Will you tell me about your trip, _please_? Wait! Let’s play hide and seek first! You have time, mother’s busy talking to that nasty old spymaster.”

She stood with her hands on her hips while he pretended to deliberate. He knew that pose from Jess. His smile widened. She was every bit her mother’s daughter. “Okay, go on.”

He jogged after Emily, the white bow on her head coming loose as they both ran down the stairs. Under the stone bridge, away from the eyes of the guards, she closed her eyes and started pointedly counting down from ten. 

Taking her queue with a soft laugh, on, eight, Corvo vaulted behind a storage crate. Crouching, he listened to his daughter continue her countdown, while in the distance, he could hear Jess arguing with spymaster Burrows.

“...they’re sick people, not criminals.” Her voice was impassioned, shutting the man down. Corvo could hear Burrows protest.

“Coming! Ready or not!” Emily announced. Corvo watched her fall to her knees to look under the spare cabling, and not for the first time he was relieved that his responsibilities did not include washing her clothes. After Emily admitted defeat, he reappeared. Grinning, she took his hand and tugged him up the stairs to see Jess.

Burrows stopped on the stairs as they passed him. “Corvo! Two days early! Full of surprises... as usual,” he called out at his back.

Jess turned to see them. Over a decade together, and still his heart leapt to see her. As always she was restrained as she met his gaze in public, but her eyes were warm with feeling. “Corvo. It is a fair wind that brings you home to me. What news have you brought?”

Corvo reached for the letter, passing it to her.

Wait. He wasn’t carrying a letter. Where did..?

Reading quickly, her face dropped. “I hoped that one of the other cities had faced this…” she turned away from him, murmuring. Something felt wrong. Unthinking, his hand hovered over his blade’s familiar hilt.

Emily asked Jessamine if she was okay. “You seem sad,” Emily said, tugging on her sleeve. Jess turned, reassuringly cupping the back of Emily’s neck as she leaned into her mother’s gentle touch. The morning light on the Wrenhaven sparkled behind them, the slow progression of distant ships passing unheeded. Seeing them together was a salve to his uneasy mind.

“Wait, where are the guards? Who sent them away?” Jess looked beyond the gazebo, suddenly frantic. Corvo unsheathed his blade.

“Mother, look! What are they doing on the rooftop?”

The masks, the coats—they were Daud’s men. Of course. Killers through and through. What a fool he was, to think the Crown’s money guaranteed their loyalty. What use was loyalty to assassins?

He should have killed Daud last night.

Two whalers lunged for him at once. Ducking and parrying while keeping Emily and Jess safe at his back, he fought the Whalers off, his blood boiling with the rage of a cornered beast. The strikes that should have ended them met no resistance—his blade met only a fluttering of void-black ash, as they transversed away.

Suddenly he was yanked into the air. He dived forward towards the ground but he remained in place and as he struggled he realised a third Whaler had appeared, using an invisible force to neutralise him, suspended in the air.

Daud appeared. Jess, unarmed, rushed the old assassin, pushing Emily from his reach, her small palms futile in their struggle against the toughened leather of his jacket.

No—

Daud backhanded her. He gripped Jess by the neck as she yelled for Corvo, Daud forcing her back against the gazebo balustrade.

Corvo reached out, choking on a scream—

Daud stabbed her in the gut. Her face fell forward, seeing but disbelieving, hands uselessly scrabbling against the blade. No, _no_ —

Her screaming stopped, hands still. It fell quiet. The world beyond the gazebo fell away. His nightmare had become frozen in time.

There was a low, echoing hum that filled his senses like a roaring to his ear.

A young man with sunken features appeared beside him, his hands clasped behind his back. Suspended still, Corvo felt he was being assessed, pinned like a moth specimen at the Royal Conservatory.

Black eyes pierced through him. “Hello Corvo. Your life has taken a turn, has it not?”

Corvo felt numb, detached from himself. He didn’t acknowledge the man, barely registering that he was there at all. He couldn’t take his eyes from Jess. Her blood no longer flowed in this static space, droplets of lifeblood paused along Daud’s blade.

Her last expression was one of pain, her hands on cold steel.

“Corvo. You are neither in reality, nor in a nightmare, but in my recreation of a timeline that nearly came to pass.” A cold hand tugged Corvo’s wrist, freeing him from the pull that had restrained him in midair. As he staggered in shock, the Whaler who had suspended him with a pulling force held their pose, like a dressmaker’s mannequin. 

Corvo pushed past the black eyed man, falling to his knees again before Jess—her blood—he was too late, she was—

“There are forces in and beyond the world, forces that men call magic. Now, this power will serve your will. I am the Outsider, and this is my mark.” Corvo ripped his eyes from Jess’ body, looking up wildly at the Outsider, failing to understand. His hand _burned_ , and as he looked down he saw the back of his hand darken with a symbol unlike anything he’d seen.

The black-eyed man watched him with the manner of an artist inspecting his work. “You may have narrowly avoided this,” the Outsider gestured widely at the gazebo suspended in the dark hum of the Void, “but you stand yet on the precipice of calamity. How you choose to use my gift is a decision that falls to you.”

Corvo stood, numbed. He had never paid much heed to the Abbey of the Everyman, and had no experience of this magic outside of knowing Daud for a few hours. Moving by instinct, his marked hand balled into a fist. In the blink of an eye, his mark blazing, he stood chest to chest with The Outsider. The young man smiled. The expression did not meet his eyes.

“I’ll be watching with great interest, Corvo.”

* * *

“...to see the cards tumble down.”

Corvo awoke to the sound of a gravelled voice and for a moment he panicked, desperate to remember where he was. As the memories pieced themselves back together, he decided his initial panic wasn’t far misplaced. Stupid, falling asleep listening to Daud's rambling. It may have been three days since he had last slept, but “catnap in an assassin’s hideout” seemed like something a Royal Protector shouldn’t have on his tombstone as cause of death.

Keeping his body still and head down despite his aching neck, Corvo listened, trying to get a sense for who and what was around him. He could hear a familiar, mechanical whirring—an audiograph? He heard Daud exhale, and click the machine off.

What else had he slept through?

“Wake up princess. There are monsters in your castle,” Daud said sardonically.

Corvo sat up in his chair. He opted to ignore the barbed comment, but the word princess sent his mind to Emily. His heart wrenched. He’d missed reading a book to her last night. Jess would be—Outsider’s eyes, Jess, the look on her face when—

His gaze dropped almost unwillingly down to the back of his hand. The mark remained. Anxiety wormed hot in the pit of his belly. He could not afford to think about this now.

He arose slowly to his feet, mind reeling, pulling his sleeve down. He smelled like a swamp from his attempt on Campbell’s life. He stood in a fugitive’s hideout. He’d fallen asleep amongst killers. He’d been dragged into the void by the Outsider, to witness his lover die, murdered by the man before him now.

His hands went to his belt. Shit, where was his blade? 

Daud noticed his gesture. “You’ve tried to kill me twice, bodyguard. And I only deserved it once. I’ve put away your weapons for now, take them on your way out. Campbell has been… assisted to sleep. So my base is secure, with the exception of certain guests,” Daud said dispassionately, a brow raised pointedly at Corvo.

Since Corvo was a teenager, he’d spent most of his waking hours with a blade at his side. Most of his sleeping hours too. The lack of its weight made him feel vulnerable, even knowing that he couldn’t win a fight against a killer with heretical powers.

Realisation dawned. Powers. Hadn't the Outsider mentioned something about powers? Magic - the way he'd gestured and reappeared. If only the god had shown him a demonstration instead of Jessamine's death. Corvo put that train of thought away for later.

“We need to neutralise Campbell as quickly as possible. He’s Burrows’ largest asset outside the crown directly, with his command of the Warfare Overseers,” Daud continued. “It seems we’re on the same page about that, given your actions last night.”

“Just kill him. You showed me a kidnapper. I’m a bodyguard. What did you expect?” he said, too tired to inject any malice into his words.

Daud pinched the bridge of his nose. “Right. What was your plan?”

"Didn't have one, truth be told." Corvo’s face darkened with morbid humour. “We could look to the Strictures for guidance I suppose. Cast out the Wandering Gaze and pull out the Lying Tongue.”

“Hilarious, Attano. Next you’ll tell me he deserves the heretic’s brand. Which I could arrange, of course. But you’ll need the Empress to double the coin.”

At the mention of Empress, Corvo had flashbacks to her blood, spilling over Daud’s blade. He winced. “Jess would want him brought to trial, with fair process,” he said, voice stiff.

“Yes. So the stories would say. She's my first client to be interested in aboveboard methods.”

“A trial would last years, and give Burrows too much time to plan. No.”

Daud shrugged. “Fine. I’ll have someone lock Campbell into one of our holdings in the sewers for now, while I chase up a lead. Perhaps get a specialist to ask him questions. I’ll have someone drop you off to the Tower. Let you catch up on your beauty sleep.”

“Where are you going?”

“The Golden Cat.”

Corvo caught sight of the notes that Daud had pinned to the wall. Right. It matched what Daud had been telling him before he gave chase to Campbell last night: the High Overseer had been at the Golden Cat frequently.

“I need to be there.”

“That is not an option. You may be well trained, but there’s little you can offer. All of Dunwall’s a stage, and I know the players better than anyone. Leave me to the work you paid for.”

Corvo thought of asking Daud about his powers, and what he knew of the strange mark. But he had to wonder if the Outsider had shown him Jess' death as a warning about putting his trust in the assassin before him. No, he was right to feel uneasy. Besides, he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to head back home to Emily and Jess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello fellow Dishonored fan - thank you for making it this far!  
> The Contract is a finished Dishonored novella (Chapters 1-9). I just need to post 'em.
> 
> The second novella (Chapters 10-19) will be posted as future chapters to this work, so please bookmark if you want notifications about a few hours of Dishonored storytime when I'm finished.
> 
> Your kudos and comments sustain me, thank you :)


	3. The Golden Cat

_ Jessamine _

  
  


“Hiram, I welcome you back. I trust your visit to the Academy of Natural Philosophy was fruitful?” It was a cold morning, and she was glad for the pleasure of hot tea every bit as much as she was irked by her present company.

“Thank you, and yes, your highness. The Council and I had a lively discussion around a number of matters pertaining to national security. Perhaps you will soon see our efforts come to life,” Burrows said, before lifting his teacup to his thin lips.

Jessamine had considered rescheduling her regular meetings with her spymaster, for fear that she’d drive a cake fork through his eye. She could almost picture the spymaster on the floor, though she lacked the bloodthirstiness to find it at all satisfying, and she wondered how Corvo would react. Void, he’d probably clap her on the shoulder for a job well done, as he sometimes unthinkingly did during their secret evening sparring sessions.

How many from her parliament would see her disposed of? Enough that Burrows was confident he’d be voted into power as Lord Regent not long after she drew her last breath. No, Burrows was only an exception to her other political enemies because he had tried to follow through with an assassin’s contract. A peculiar thing to take heart from, and yet it worked to still the tumult in her mind. 

Patience. No sense in fearing the man, not that she felt inclined to. If anything, she would do well to be less angry. Discussions with Burrows were frustrating enough, without knowing about the metaphorical knife behind his back.

“I have had little opportunity to leave the tower for some time now, so I must confess I am fascinated to hear more news from beyond these walls,” she said truthfully and smiled, inclining her head to her maid Margaret, who offered her more tea. She watched her fill the cup, looking forward to wrapping her cold fingers around its warmth.

Burrows smiled briefly. “Oh yes. The engineers at the Academy are assisting me with some prototypes, and we’re nearing the final stages before we can look into mass production. Sadly I can’t say more, as I have signed a nondisclosure.”

“Oh, engineers? How novel, Hiram. That is not the first thought I had for resolving a pandemic, though I trust your judgement. How will they help keep my people safe?” She kept her tone mild, as though merely curious.

Though there was a part of her that delighted in making him squirm, in truth, the question of how to banish the plague was on her mind constantly. With Corvo’s trip to seek aid from other countries now cancelled, Jessamine had begun seeking applications from medical experts across the Isles.

She would not accept Burrows’ suggestion to use force on her citizens, and she knew he would not be forthcoming with any other solution. Meanwhile, Sokolov—her Royal Physician, and Head of the Academy of Natural Philosophy—may be a genius, but he had one of the most easily distracted minds she'd ever known. She loved him like a father, but she was not blind to his gravitation towards his own pleasure far more than his gravitation towards finishing tasks. She would not pin Dunwall’s hopes to any one man.

“Indeed, it is important to take a multi-disciplinary approach to these sorts of disasters, your majesty. Particularly to protect valuable lives. We must ensure Dunwall’s future is bright. Even if they question our leadership, which seems remarkably common of late.”

She could almost laugh for how he echoed her thoughts, but meant something entirely different by it. “Valuable lives? I’m sure we agree that we will uphold the faith my people have in the Crown, and protect their personal integrity without discrimination. The Dunwall Courier’s opinion pieces are an abstract nothing. We must focus on our work. Tell me, how fares progress with your most recent assignment? Your investigation into the origins of the rat plague?”

Bland-faced, Jess watched him. Burrows seemed confident, his pose comfortable in her seats. The seats he sought to rule from. She could not give him indication that she was aware of his plans without putting herself in danger, and worse, giving him time to warn his supporters. No. It was best to draw him out slowly. Get names. Stifle support.

The cake fork idea remained tempting, however.

“Of course your highness, I am still worki—”

A single knock at the door. “Mother?” Emily’s head poked into Jessamine’s sitting room, and without waiting for a response, she bounded in.

Jess couldn’t keep the relief off her face to see that Emily led Corvo in. The circles under his eyes were dark and his clothes were rumpled, but he seemed hale.

“Emily. Royal Protector. Hiram and I were wrapping up.”

“I’ll see myself out, your majesty.” Hiram bowed out of the room. 

The three were alone at last, a rare moment to treasure. The pile of paperwork at her desk be damned to the void. Jess scooped up Emily, who whooped and clung to her neck gleefully while she pressed a kiss to Corvo’s cheek. Jess’ nose wrinkled. Why did her lover smell like damp shoes?

“Corvo, where have you been?” she asked, curious about his smell. Though she had missed him, it wasn’t unusual for him to come back home at odd hours. Had he been in the sewers? Just as well he rarely used the main entrance. They didn’t need the extra gossip.

She watched him search her face, as though he was trying to commit it to memory. She could never tell if his title of Royal Protector made him worry less or more about her. Although, it was rare for him to clearly wear his anxieties on his face before Emily like this.

“Corvo! Now you’re home, can you teach me how to play Nancy? I heard the guards talking about losing all their money playing it. I’m good at games though. I bet I won't lose any money playing it,” Emily interrupted, hopeful.

Corvo’s face softened. “Maybe once you finish your lessons for today, Emily. Jess, we’ve made progress. There’s something on tonight though, I need to head out again.”

Emily’s face fell. “Aw. Just one game? Please?”

“How about your mother finds you a more fitting game for a young lady, like chess? I need to bathe,” said Corvo.

“You certainly do. Take rest now my love, and fill me in as soon as you can. Don’t take too long though, or I’ll teach your royal daughter to play Nancy,” Jessamine threatened.

* * *

_Corvo_

Alone in Jess’ ensuite after a bath and fresh change of clothes, Corvo stared into his reflection over the basin, angling his face to better catch the midday Dunwall sun without blinding himself on its reflection in his razor.

Low in the mirror, he caught sight of white movement. Emily’s ribbon. Tilting his head slightly to watch her, he could see that her expression was intense with focus as she moved as slowly and as silently as she could.

Aha. An ambush. Good—just like in her lessons with him, the ones that they agreed to never ever tell Callista about.

Keeping an eye on the telltale bob of her ribbon, he carefully put down his razorblade and picked up a much less dangerous shaving brush which still dripped with suds, working it in circles across his jaw as though he was oblivious.

As predictable as the pouncing of a kitten, Emily leapt, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. “Cooooorvo! Got you!” she exclaimed, and he could hear the grin on her face behind his shoulder blade.

“Are you sure about that?” Corvo asked, reaching back over his shoulder with a handful of soapy foam. Emily yelled with playful fear, bouncing off his back to skim a handful of suds from the basin and fling it at him.

The foam she launched fell slowly to the floor between them. They both eyed it for a moment, before bursting into laughter. 

Grinning, Corvo grabbed a towel from the warming rack—a new installation to Jess’ ensuite, at Sokolov’s insistence at the "simple but transcendent comfort of warmed cotton"—and wiped away the suds from his face. Then he whipped up more foam, offering a piled handful to Emily. In companionable quiet, they stood side by side building bubbly shapes in the sudsy water, their foam creations melding together like clouds over Dunwall.

“Should I ask you which lesson you’re meant to be at right now?” he asked her eventually, not willing to spoil the fun, but not willing to risk Callista panicking either.

“Callista knows where I am,” Emily responded, a little too quickly.

He tossed her a towel to clean her hands with. “I choose to believe that you would never lie to your Royal Protector, young lady.”

She beamed at him, and grabbed his hand, turning it over and tracing the Outsider’s mark, hold on,  _ by the void why hadn’t he covered that up _ —

“Well, I choose to believe that a  _ lord  _ would never join a gang,” she said with exaggerated courtly airs, looking slyly up at him.

Corvo stiffened in panic, trying to work out what to say to his child. He had only had the mark a few hours, and he had barely come to terms with it, let alone decide if he should be hiding the Outsider’s mark even from Emily. Of course, now that it was far too late it seemed obvious that a ten year old was the worst person to be the first to know. Sure, she was bound to see the Outsider’s mark on his hand at some point, if he couldn’t work out how to get rid of it. He'd show her some day. Maybe once she was older. Maybe.

But seeing as she already knew, how was he going to explain what the mark meant, or what it allowed him to do? He barely understood it himself, let alone know how to explain to Emily in a way that she wouldn’t go and unintentionally spread around the court.

“Well, this isn’t a gang tattoo—wait, Emily, how do you know about gang tattoos?”

She huffed in frustration. “I’m not nine years old anymore, Corvo! I asked Callista about gangs and she said it wasn’t for me to know, too. But I have loads of books that talk about them. Gangs are interesting and a bit like pirate ships, which are full of cool bad people who sometimes do good things.”

“No Emily, gang members don’t do good things,” he said as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m not part of a gang.”

“So is it a bit like the mole on the head chef’s nose? She cried about it when I asked her why it was there. She said she didn’t know and then I felt bad. I was just wondering.”

This conversation was spiralling well out of Corvo’s control. “How about we go down to the kitchens later this week and say sorry for upsetting you, Mrs Barnett? Maybe Callista would like to accompany you.”

“Can you come with me instead?” she pleaded. “I had to say sorry to someone else in the kitchens last month and I didn’t want Callista to know about this one too. I already know the importance of maintaining goodwill from mother's—my—subjects, I don't want that lecture again,  _ please _ ?”

He softened. She was inquisitive and bright and thoughtful, and he knew he shouldn't feel as proud of her as he did for asking awkward questions people didn't want to hear, but he felt proud anyway. “Alright. How about we trade secrets then. I’ll help you apologise and make Mrs Barnett feel better, and how about you keep quiet about this mark?”

“Deal!” she exclaimed, relieved. “But what is it?”

“I'm just worried that I might get in trouble if—"

"What's the trouble?" Jess asked, walking into the room and tugging off her fitted jacket. "Oh, Emily. Don't you have a lesson now?"

Emily and Corvo exchanged a look. "I was just about to escort her," he said as he reached for her hand, "I'll be right back."

* * *

Rubbing his fingertips over his half-shaved jawline, Corvo returned to the ensuite to finish the shave he'd started before Emily had tried to sneak up on him.

Jess sat at her vanity, smiling at him through the mirror as she patted blue eyeshadow to her eyelids. "She has you wrapped around her finger," she said fondly.

"And you don't?" He asked with a raised eyebrow as he pressed a quick kiss to her neck, before returning to his shaving kit, tossing and catching the blade before angling it to his stubble.

"I've got another meeting now, can you tell me how it went with the Knife? What was that trouble you mentioned?"

He slowly put his razor back down as the memory of her beautiful face slackened in death threatened to overwhelm him.

Watching his face, her eyebrows furrowed. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. You’re not going to like this.”

“No? And here I was, believing that ending Burrows' conspiracy against me would be the work of an evening,” she said dryly.

“Are you aware of the relationship between Campbell and Burrows?”

“Yes, they go wa—hold on, you’re not saying that the Overseers were supporting my assassination?’

“I’m not sure. I’d check with Daud but judging from Campbell’s other behaviour, I’d say he’s not representative of the faction.”

“Sorry?”

“You know the Golden Cat?”

“Finest ladies in all the Isles,” she automatically quoted the faded posters that had been plastered around Dunwall for years.

“Yes. Well. Campbell had been availing himself, which may be against the Strictures but was a habit for him. Or so Daud says. Some of the workers at the Golden Cat decided to blackmail him over it. He retaliated by leaving them unconscious in the Flooded District, where Daud’s men had been finding them. Saw it happen myself.”

She swivelled in her seat to look up at him, outrage clear in her expression. “He is unfit to be High Overseer. I have other contacts at the Abbey, I will convene with them at their earliest convenience, have his position revoked. This deserves imprisonment! So you saw this? Are there other witnesses? Can Daud gather evidence on this?”

“Er. I may have…”

Jess sighed. “Corvo, you didn’t.”

“He’s alive. Daud’s holding him captive for now.”

She closed her eyes and rested her face in her palms. “So you kidnapped a kidnapper,” she said, resigned, voice muffled by her fingers, before she jerked up and swivelled back to the mirror, checking her makeup for fresh smudges.

Corvo shuffled where he stood. “It was better than letting him kidnap the other workers at the Golden Cat, right?”

She raised an eyebrow at him through the mirror, and hummed an agreement. “I suppose, then, that this conversation never happened, is that correct?” 

“Is what correct?” he asked, feigning confusion.

“I’m unsure. I believe I have lost track of this conversation, you’ll have to forgive me, my love,” she said, her painted lips quirking up into a half smile.

Corvo couldn’t summon up the energy to respond with a smile of his own. “Jess. There is one more thing…”

“Hm?”

Feeling sick, he ran his fingers over the fastening of the bindings that covered his left hand. Slowly, he started to unwind the bandage. Jess looked up in alarm, gently covering his hand with her own. “Are you injured? No need to show me, I believe you—are you okay? A scrape? A knife wound? Have you spoken to Anton?”

Corvo stopped still, then started refastening his hand covering. “It’s fine. It will heal.”

Standing on her tiptoes to press a kiss to his cheek, she rushed to her next meeting, leaving him alone. He vowed he’d talk to her about the scene of her death in the void, his subsequent meeting with the Outsider, and the gifts he walked away with.

If he could find a way to make it seem plausible, even to himself.

* * *

_ Daud _

Daud thumbed the eye patch in his small shaving mirror.

“For all the blood I’ve ever spilled, for all the arson, the spying and theft… Lurk, I think this is a new low for me.”

“Don’t look at me. Not my idea!” she protested, wheezing. She had barely stopped laughing since she arrived to see Daud dressed as a gentleman pirate.

Daud straightened his form-fitting waistcoat. “Can’t say I didn’t expect your reaction. The pirates I knew once would laugh themselves sick too. Any suggestions for who to send to the Golden Cat instead?”

“Well, sir. If we need to work the rooms, we need someone who is good at talking,” she wiped away a tear of laughter, “which is the opposite of what we do, given that our victims stop talking one way or another. Void, even Thomas is out. He may be born to strike a deal, but he looks like he’d blush at the word brothel.”

Thomas walked in from the makeshift tin platforms outside Daud's office, placing a bookmark in the novel he'd been reading. “I heard my name? Sir,” he startled, “what… is that.”

“I can’t just walk into the Golden Cat. Our client list has too much overlap. Figured I’d wear something memorable, such that the double-takes are for aesthetic offense. Rather than my reputation.”

“Respectfully sir, and I’m only saying this because I know you would want me to say something... This is sounding like hubris. Good idea though. Overall. Sir.” Thomas’ voice was distant.

“Shame is for people who have something to lose, Thomas.”

“I could go,” Billie said. Her attempt at a casual tone was lost beneath her grin.

“I know damn well you know half the girls there, and you also know who they’re not happy with. So if you can promise me you can last an entire evening without stabbing a noble gentleman of leisure… ”

“Damn. You got me. Speaking of, Aya said The Golden Cat recently acquired a billiard table. Says it’s the place to be, if you love watching rich assholes miss shots while they discuss treason.”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Daud said, jamming on a tricorn hat. “Thomas, three Whalers should be plenty, brief them on the new window mechanisms at the Golden Cat. I need eyes and ears across the building. Billie, get me the reservation list.”

Fist to chest, they both bowed in response. Flustered, Thomas looked him up and down one last time, his lips closing into a thin line before he transversed out.

Billie walked to the framed print of Hiram Burrows across from Daud’s desk. It was something she’d stolen and placed here as a joke, knowing Daud’s dislike for the power-hungry weasel who was, tragically, very profitable. He knew, from her glances, that she still wondered why he’d never taken it down. He planned to let her wonder.

She pretended to inspect Burrows, her back to him. “Working the room, sir? You surprise me again. I had no idea that you could work the room in any way that didn’t involve theft or planted evidence.”

“There’s still time for that.” Daud picked up a cane. He paced across the room, with each pass making a subtle change to the way he feigned a limp.

“Where did your outfit come from anyway?” Billie asked finally, curiosity winning out, her eyes following the bob of the large trailing feather in his pirate hat.

“If I told you that, I’d have to kill you.”

“Daud.”

“Some banker’s closet back when there was anything to loot left in Rudshore. Pirate hat is a souvenir of sorts. I’ll tell you about it later. You'll love it.”

* * *

_ Corvo _

  
  


Corvo was not looking forward to this evening. Smog clung low, and the threat of plague kept pedestrians scarce upon Clavering Boulevard, meaning his efforts to travel incognito went to waste - there was barely anyone to spot the Royal Protector.

With fewer Gristollians on the streets, the rats were emboldened, travelling unhurried and bright-eyed. The politicians and the papers claimed there were twice as many rats as last year, though it was difficult to determine if that were true now that there was no foot traffic to keep the rats in hiding.

Mistrust of Daud and his Whalers may have brought him to the Golden Cat, but it was the grudging acknowledgement that a lead was a lead, that made him stay. In truth, instinct screamed at him to go back to the tower and take it apart brick by brick, find the traitors who would name a price for Jess’ life and destroy their lives instead.

If only it could be that simple.

Instead, here Corvo was, trying to blend in at a fancy brothel, angling himself to overhear loose-lipped conversation. It felt like a bad plan. Void, it was a bad plan. But it was better than doing nothing to protect Jess and Emily.

He hadn’t made any progress on deciding how to speak to Jess about the Outsider’s mark on his hand. He did not understand why the Outsider would choose him. Corvo's job - his singular purpose - was to protect Jess and Em, and that wouldn't change, regardless of whatever The Outsider had planned. He’d never cared for the occult in any direction, though he did take care to not attract the attention of the Abbey, same as anyone else in the Isles.

He could not shake the way the Outsider’s eyes pierced right through him.

With whiskey in hand as a prop, he leaned against a bannister on the top floor of the Golden Cat. He watched the clever workings of the harpist’s fingers. She was a striking figure, shining red hair tumbling over her fair, freckled shoulders. From Morley, perhaps. Jess would have loved to watch her perform.

“Looking to take a night off?” a woman's voice, her smile audible in her words even before he turned to see her. She wore draped white silk, its careful construction emphasising her curves and contrasting with the way her black hair was tied up in an artful mess. Her dark eyes were warm as she joined him in leaning against the bannister, mimicking his pose. Corvo inclined his head, non-committal. He was not here for anything the Golden Cat offered, except information.

“A good plan. It’s too lovely an evening to go without company,” she leaned in closer. ”You know, it’s wonderful to see a man who takes care about the plague. So many mistake their negligence for bravery. So you’re a guardsman, I take it? I bet those muscles come in handy.”

She reached out to his arm, fingers lingering as she met his eyes. Under the mask, Corvo grimaced. This would be a dream stakeout for most of the guards he knew. His eyes broke away from hers and travelled back to the harpist, letting his lack of response do the talking.

* * *

A few more hours and a few more propositions later, Corvo had had enough. He’d have never found this awkward a decade ago. He had roamed, pretending to admire the art, which was all blurring into one golden-framed sketch of a woman with sensual lips. His whiskey-on-the-rocks prop had long ago melted, now room temperature.

It had become a busy evening at the Golden Cat, the revelers undeterred from seeking pleasure by neither the plague nor the failing economy. Corvo had been keeping tabs on a few groups of noblemen, some here to cinch deals, others here to encourage their friends in overindulgence.

Nothing felt out of place to him. Any other night, that would be a good thing. Tonight, he felt like a mountain cat trapped in a cage, built to climb and chase and kill but instead he was stuck keeping up the appearance of ease. It reminded him of when Jess' negotiations turned sour as he watched, yet here he didn't even have the benefit of pouring his frustrations into a menacing glare.

He worried he wasted time. He couldn’t spot anyone who seemed to be a Whaler, let alone someone plotting to dethrone Jess. Thinking about it, it seemed ridiculous that he expected to walk into a brothel and overhear someone openly discuss regicide. What use was he here? Should have stayed with Jess. Watched over her, talked to her about his mark.

He wandered downstairs to the steam baths, and got an eyeful of three lovers, rutting with enthusiastic exertion, hands clutching at fabric and bare skin. Corvo’s eyes skidded over the scene, as he immediately turned around to walk back up the stairs. He could feel his face was flushed, surely due to the heat of the steam rooms. Time to get some fresh air.

Corvo stepped out onto a balcony, surreptitiously pouring his unwanted drink onto the cliffs below. He'd had too much time in his own head this evening, and was feeling worse for it. If only he were out training, enjoying the simplicity of sweat and muscle memory and the fire of competition.

“Hello sir. I’d been hoping to get you alone,” a woman spoke to him, voice quiet. Corvo internally sighed. A guest arriving alone at the Golden Cat could only want one thing, making him look like an easy sell. He should have thought this through.

“You’re very lovely but not my type. No offense intended,” he said.

“Oh no, I think I know what you’re here for. And I think we both want the same thing,” she said. He glanced back at her. She wore the same revealing silk dress that the other courtesans were wearing, yet her face bore no welcome.

“I’m sure we don’t want the same thing. Enjoy the rest of your evening.”

Her voice became sharp. “I don’t mean sex. I’ve been watching you all night and I know you’re not here for fun. Every woman who works here has approached you, but you haven’t looked twice at them. You stand and watch like a guard, but none of the guards know you. If you were here to meet someone you’d be watching the doors. No. I don’t think you’re a client at all.”

* * *

_ Daud _

  
  


Daud had forgotten how much he hates this kind of place. It wasn’t the sex, it wasn’t the drugs, it wasn’t the aristocracy… well, maybe it was the aristocracy. The loud ribaldry here put him in mind of the students he’d met at the Academy, the depth of their self-importance far more impressive than the depth of their research.

Daud arrived late. He was aiming for that hour near midnight when tongues were loosened and giddy, but not senseless.

He’d abandoned the tricorn hat to Lurk's continued entertainment, but kept the cane and eyepatch. Less pirate, more gentleman. Daud had a feeling the hat would disappear from his room when he returned back to base. He could easily picture it being passed between chuckling Whalers, and he found he didn’t mind at all.

Having seen the guest list tonight at the Golden Cat, there was some chance he’d be recognised. So be it. Most of his clients were cowards, which is why they paid him.

Even knowing that there were more guards here than usual, he was unconcerned. He could dispatch everyone on this floor in seconds, even disarmed. A party like this was nothing.

Walking upstairs, Daud offered his arm to a Golden Cat hostess, who greeted him with enthusiasm. She laughed delightedly at his wink, her golden waves bouncing as much as her other assets, and she introduced herself as Giselle. Sweet girl, he thought. Bet she does well here.

“What kind of evening did you have in mind? More importantly, would you like a drink? We have the most amazing imported brandy! It tastes of apricots, if you like them? If you prefer to drink local King Street Brandy, we have that too!”

“Bring me what you think I’ll like,” he said simply.

He knew coming here meant inevitably creating a tab, but that didn’t mean he was happy about it. Each coin spent now was a coin that could have brought him closer to retirement, and getting out of Dunwall. Leaving behind this twisted city. It was something that he and Billie had talked about, some late nights together sharing a hip flask on the roof, watching the shimmering lights over the Wrenhaven. He had always put money aside, but idly daydream as he might, it didn’t feel like something he’d live to see.

Tonight, Billie commanded three Whalers: Misha, Denman and Shorter Thomas. It was more than necessary, but it meant that they could have eyes, ears, and quick fingers in every part of the building. It also meant that the Whalers would turn a profit tonight, brandy ordered or not.

Maybe he could charge his expenses this evening to the Crown, as a cost of doing business. Now, there was an idea. Giselle returned to Daud smiling, two glasses in hand. There was a spring in her step, and even as disinterested in her as Daud was, he had to admit the way her face dimpled when she smiled was pretty.

“I fancy a game of all-in. I hear there’s a billiard table here?” He picked up the glass and inhaled. A good vintage. Perhaps he’d have a cigar later, since he had decided that the Empress was paying.

“Of course, I’ll show you!”

Giselle talked animatedly about her interest in billiards with minimal encouragement from Daud, chalking the wooden cue as they waited near the billiards table. Daud drank and cast his eye about the room. A few familiar noble faces here, just as he’d expected. He spotted one of the Pendleton bastards. No sign of Corvo, thankfully, though he had a feeling that he’d see him tonight, since the Royal Protector didn’t know how to follow instructions.

Daud realised he’d tuned out to Giselle’s chatter. That wouldn’t do. Tonight, he was Mister Pearce, a nouveau riche gemstone trader looking for his way into aristocratic circles. A common enough story in Dunwall these days. Mister Pearce would have, of course, lots of questions about who was who of the more well-connected Golden Cat clients tonight.

But there was a limit to the usefulness of this cover story. It worked well enough for asking the Golden Cat staff about other guests, but it wouldn’t hold up well under scrutiny. Acting never had been his forte, nor subservience for that matter. He couldn’t kowtow to Dunwall’s elite if his life depended on it. Not that it did. Hopefully the Whalers listening in the eaves would pick up what they needed soon, and he could go back to quieter work.

“Say, Giselle. Seems busy tonight,” he said, and she pressed in closer, as though to better hear his admittedly raspy voice over the jostle of partygoers.

“Sure is!” she smiled wide at him, her hips brushing against his side. “Humphreys brought some of his friends along to see the Pendletons this evening, and that’s always a riot. Lord Brimsley is here with some guests. And I think I heard something about the trade of steel and wool…” she side-eyed him through her blonde tresses.

She was as good as asking about his work or family fortune, but knew better than to ask a client directly. Probably wondering how much time she should spend with him. “I feel like I’ve been running into the Pendletons a lot lately,” he mused aloud. Let her make what she will of that.

In fairness, it was  _ almost _ true. He’d had supplies cached near their manor for years, preparing for the inevitable contract on one (or all three) of the Pendleton brothers. The Pendleton name came with enough money and prestige that their cruel streak was, if not accepted, then overlooked by the majority of Dunwall. Daud and Thomas had agreed that it was inevitable they’d piss off the wrong person. Billie, on the other hand, was convinced that bumping them off would be a public service.

“Hear hear! Their Lordships, the twins I mean, have been here every day. I think they’d move in permanently if they could come up with an excuse. Lord Custis even had us set up his desk in the smoking room, it seems he has lofty plans for improving the city,” Giselle gestured with the billiard cue.

Seemed a decadent way to conduct business when you had a perfectly good estate and several offices to work from. Old money types could almost be defined for how little they thought about money, Daud mused. Probably explained the extra guards tonight though.

“Improving the city?” Daud asked, feigning interest. Void was he glad he had nothing to do with politics.

“Oh yes. They’re some of the most engaged politicians I’ve seen here, really. Don’t ask them about their plans on city reforms unless you want to hear about it for hours! I wouldn’t ask them about the Empress, either.” Giselle patted his arm excitedly. “Mister Pearce, I just had a fun idea! If you want to play all-in, I’ve got someone you should meet!” she raced away, hair bouncing. She returned in minutes, dragging forward a man whose age-lined face was flushed and grinning, seeming not in the least put out to have his arm trapped close to Giselle’s silk-clad, ample breasts. She spoke close into his ear with a grin.

“Mister Dawe! I have a new contender for you! Here, have you met Mister Pearce before?” she asked him, gesturing at Daud with her palm up. 

Pence Dawe’s face drained of colour, sobering faster than a plunge into the Wrenhaven. “No, we’ve never met.”

Daud had arranged for Dawe’s fiancee to have an “accident” some years ago now. How had Dawe described it at the time? Ah. Her being out of the picture would save the Dawe family “substantial embarrassment.” Daud never asked for a reason for an assassination contract, but it was rare to not hear his clients give him one.

Daud blandly looked the man up and down. Pence had the sway of a man who was far beyond his drinking limit. “Lovely to meet you. Giselle, please fetch another round of brandy for myself and this gentleman.” 

As soon as Giselle left, Dawe stepped in closer, as though disbelieving that Daud stood before him. He opened his mouth to speak, met Daud’s gaze for the briefest of seconds, flinched and took two steps back.

“I hear you’re the man to ask about a game of all-in?” Daud asked neutrally. If the man was looking to cause a scene, he wouldn’t get what he craved from Daud, who’d swatted flies that were more interesting than Pence Dawe.

“Please. Whatever you want. Just leave me be,” Dawe’s voice stumbled over itself, like his tongue was too thick for his mouth.

“We’re next in line for the billiards table. Giselle’s bringing brandy. It’s quite good. Apricot jam notes,” Daud responded as though Dawe had commented on the drapes or the weather.

“How did you know?” Dawe asked intensely, overcoming his fear and clutching at Daud’s sleeves. He stunk of wine and stale smoke. “Why—how are you here? It’s the fourth anniversary of her leaving this world. Four years. Every night. When I sleep, I hear her voice, singing still,” he drew a shuddering breath, speaking low. “I hope she doesn’t wait long to meet me in the void.”

If Daud weren’t in public, he’d drag a palm down his face in frustration. Dawe was not taking the hint. He certainly was not keeping track of jobs, and neither was he being paid to listen to the regrets of a man with a spine like a jellyfish. If he had noticed that Giselle was bringing Pence Dawe over he’d have excused himself.

Some assassins joined the trade because they loved the thrill of the hunt. Daud had not learned the killing trade by choice, but he was good at it even before he got a taste of the Outsider’s gifts. It was easy—and very good—money, and he had made a straightforward business decision. Sure, maybe it wasn’t just the money. There was satisfaction in a job well done, and a sense of power in the assassin’s skillset. Multiply that by the Outsider’s mark, and it was a positively sensible trade.

But there was good reason his written contracts were shrouded in corporate jargon. It wasn't to protect Dunwall's bloodthirsty elite. It created distance, a veneer of professionalism that hid the gore and stains that wouldn’t wash off. Dunwall loved the idea of the Knife and his faceless Whalers, and almost romanticised his ability to whisk away problems with the slice of a blade and the jingle of a tossed coin pouch.

Those who could afford the Knife of Dunwall’s hand were fast to pass the blame, pinning all responsibility for the deaths they requested onto Daud. They paid to keep their hands clean, and conscience clear. Though they deserved to rot in the void every bit as much as he did.

“That’s not to say I’m not grateful, of course I am, I appreciate your silence, I just wonder if there was some other way, but no, that’s how it had to be, I’m glad you understand that—”

Daud watched Dawe before him, as the man blurted his regrets. He sought to confide in the wrong person. Or, perhaps the right person. There was only one type of closure an assassin could offer a client. What a hassle.

Coming here tonight was a mistake.

Daud felt a faint tug through the arcane bond that tethered his Whalers to him. He felt relieved. Billie. Only she could use their arcane bond to tug back at him. He chose to not wonder about why this was, accepting it as a sign that he was right to choose her for leadership.

He exaggerated a yawn to cover that his gaze was rising to the ceiling, knowing that he was coming off as cold and uncaring. Good.

Billie was above. She gestured to him from her perch atop the giant golden cat head. Dawe gripped the billiard table for stability while he dashed away tears with his palm. Daud left him there. Maybe he would forget in the morning. Shaking his head as he walked out of sight, Daud transversed into the empty bathrooms and summoned Billie, who appeared in a flutter of void.

“Sir. You take me to the nicest places. Have you seen the Royal Protector this evening?”

“No. Figured he’d be here. Seems he can’t leave well enough alone,” he said.

“Good instinct. Because Misha spotted him with a worker here. Not my business who the Empress’ squeeze is fucking. Except Shorter Thomas overheard gossip that one of the women working here tonight, doesn’t actually work here at all. None of the Golden Cat courtesans have seen her until yesterday.”

“Outsider’s limp dick. Corvo, again,” Daud ripped off his eyepatch. “Either that’s some agent of his that I haven’t heard of, or he’s trying to get himself killed.”

“I’ve only known him a day and I’d say it’s the latter, sir.”

“Where is he?”

* * *

_ Corvo _

“No, you’re right. I’m not here for what the Golden Cat sells, but I don’t know you, or why you’re here,” Corvo said. He warily watched her posture for reaction, noticing for the first time that her muscular build was like that of his sparring partners at Dunwall Tower.

“Call me Maisey. I’ve been here since yesterday. I don’t,” her voice dropped a notch, “work here per se, but my client is very interested in the Golden Cat. In a sense. I can’t continue this discussion in the open.”

Corvo did not consider himself a smart man, but he wasn’t dumb either. “Doesn’t seem to be anyone other than us on the balcony. We discuss this here.”

Her eyes flitted to the secluded balconies across from their own, and Maisey’s expression clouded. “If we are overheard, the best case scenario is that we lose access to what we’re here for. The worst case scenario… we both die slowly.”

He read fear on her face, and decided that at least some part of what she said was true. But he could not soothe the part of himself that chomped at the bit, ready to fight. Something was off, this simply didn’t happen. Not to him, anyway. But it was the first lead he’d had tonight, and he was desperate enough to follow her.

“The Ivory Room isn’t booked tonight. It will serve. Perhaps not as well as the Silver Room for soundproofing, but I’m pretty sure I saw Bunting here earlier, so that’s a no go…” she mused. 

* * *

Leaving the balcony, Corvo followed Maisey through the crowds. He scoped out the area as he moved through the guests. There wasn’t anything to suggest an ambush awaited him in the Ivory Room, but not for the first time in his life he wished he could see through walls.

He blinked, and it was as if the world tipped on its head.

All was awash with the colour of coffee-stained parchment. The dozens of people surrounding him were replaced by life-size yellow figurines, like a poorly painted army set had come to life, devoid of features, moving realistically.

It was blinding. He nearly stumbled, but the yellow silhouette he knew to be Maisey turned to grab his sleeve impatiently. A nearby drunkard gave a leering catcall when he noticed Maisey pulling him through the crowd, and Corvo watched the man’s cone of vision turn to watch her walk by.

“Come on,” she said, and he could  _ see  _ the sound of her voice washing over him, each syllable casting a wave that crashed against everything around them. Looking to the room where they were headed, there were no bright yellow figures waiting behind the door. Not an ambush, then.

This could only be another of his Outsider-granted powers. He could feel a headache coming on, but when he opened his eyes, his vision righted itself. Nausea settled over him, hot and claustrophobic, but at least he could see normally again.

Maisey hit the lever that marked the room from available to unavailable, closing the doors behind them. This room was lined not by the signature rich red damask wallpaper of the Golden Cat, but blue, and in the centre of the room was a plush circular bed. The windows looked out to streetlight reflecting over the water, giving the impression, if not the reality, of privacy.

She ran her fingers down the silk of her dress, seeming distracted. “I’ve bribed the guards, but I’ve only got a few more days before I run out of time, since I gave them the impression that I want to poach Golden Cat clients. Tell me. Who are you working for?” she asked.

“I can’t say, but I am following a trail of suspected criminal activity. I wasn’t given much more detail to work from.”

“When I was briefed, I wasn’t given any reason to think there would be any further parties involved. I did not expect to see someone like you. What have you gathered so far?” She looked up, eyes suddenly piercing.

“I’m afraid I have nothing to offer you.”

“That seems unlikely,” she said slowly. Behind her, Corvo noticed that the private balcony door was ajar. “You don’t even know who you’re here to watch?”

Daud appeared behind Maisey, grappling her arm into a lock, compressing her neck in the crook of his elbow. A small knife fell between them to the floor. It landed with a clutter, and Daud kicked it away towards Corvo.

Moving fast, Maisey dropped her weight, stepping in and using momentum to force Daud to the ground, but instead of going down he transversed behind her and—

“No!” Corvo barked, calling upon the Outsider's mark to hurl himself across the room, his pistol raised to Daud’s temple.

Daud did a double take, and Corvo couldn’t tell if it was because of the gun to his head, or the way that Corvo had transversed across the room. Maisey was caught between them, her hand clawing at Daud’s arm around her neck. “She’s okay Daud, stop, Outsider take you, stop!”

He released the woman, who steadied herself against the blue wall, and transversed to the edge of the room, putting the bed between himself, Maisey and Corvo.

Catching Corvo’s eye, Daud pointedly slid his gaze to where the knife lay on the ground. “You’re welcome.”

Maisey hauled herself up to sit on the circular bed, gingerly touching her neck. “Daud. I know you. Of you. Who are you here for?”

“That depends. Tell me what you know. Without stabbing my colleague. Preferably.”

Maisey inhaled, stiffening her spine. “I’m a contractor. Hired by a loan collection company. Middleton’s Mercantile Services. You know it?” Daud nodded for her to continue. “I’m not going to get in your way, if you’re here for the Pendleton twins. They’re shit broke and Middleton’s is trying to recover as much of the loan as they can, but they have been uncontactable at their addresses for months.”

“A loan? Why go to so much effort over a loan?” Corvo asked.

“We’re talking huge sums. Hiring me to infiltrate this place is nothing compared to the coin involved. Middletons needed me to collect evidence that they’re both here, and that they’re still spending coin. Coin they don’t seem to have, on paper at least. I heard the twins talking, Custis has sold their parliamentary votes to afford their residency at the Golden Cat. And they’ve been making up for their loss of influence by bribing journalists to make shit up about the Empress. Like I was saying,” she glared at Daud, rolling her broad shoulders, “I’m not a threat to you.”

Selling votes? Jess would be furious. Let alone when she found out that the recent rumours about her had come from parliament itself, though right now that was the least of her problems.

“Explain the knife,” Daud drawled.

“Your colleague here,” she frowned, finger jabbing in Corvo’s direction, “doesn’t make the best case for himself.” Corvo made no attempt to defend himself on this point. He didn’t have the luxury of making mistakes like this. Jess’ life was on the line. He was pathetic.

Daud made a sound of amusement. “Ignore him.”

“Right now, the Pendletons have no reason to suspect me. But I can’t get caught. Everyone in Dunwall knows what they’re like,” Maisey said, straightening. “I have to watch my back.”

Corvo tried to think. The Pendletons. He once threw one of the Pendleton twins out of parliament for a crass remark about Jess’ legs (was it Morgan? Or was it Custis?), but he wasn’t aware of any ‘reputation’. He and Jess were not fond of the older Pendletons, but that wasn’t unusual for members of their parliament.

“Now that, I can understand. I’m familiar with the Pendletons. Twisted bastards think the Isles are nothing but playgrounds for their sadistic streak, and everything suggests they’ll continue to get away with it. Can’t think of why no one has paid me to kill them yet. However, one of my current clients would be interested to hear about their votes,” Daud said.

“That’s interesting. My client needs me to ensure the Pendletons can’t flee the city while they mount evidence to reclaim some of their assets.”

“A trade, then. You work on getting us proof they’ve agreed to sell out their vote, and in exchange I can offer eyes on the Pendletons at all hours. I’ll even throw in some measures to prevent them from taking off.”

Corvo knew he should feel… something about having another piece of the puzzle of the conspiracy to make Burrows the Lord Regent. It was a successful evening, he admitted to himself without enthusiasm.

Until these past two days, he had thought he did a good job as Jessamine’s Royal Protector, if you ignored the impropriety of their relationship.

For years, Corvo had worked hard, snatching time away from Jess when he could to keep his mind and body agile. He’d learned to live off a scant handful of hours of sleep a night. He trained early in the morning for strength, trained for agility and dexterity, trained to improve his manners at court, studied to be able to offer more than confused nods and nonspecific sympathy to Jess’ political conundrums.

He wanted to excel, despite—maybe even because of—his low upbringing and foreign home.

None of it was for Dunwall’s sake. Only Jess. And when Emily was born, his dedication to defending the Kaldwin line changed. No longer was it simply the way he showed his love for Jessamine, but instead it became a dogged single-mindedness. Doing good work now laid the groundwork for a brighter future for Emily.

But look at how years of work came crashing down. Their lives were on the line in a way that he should have seen coming, and even with more information at his fingertips now, there was so little he could do. 

What was the point of him?

Standing here in a brothel between an assassin and a spy, his Lord Protector title felt like a farce. He could not stop seeing the pain on Jess’ face as she died in the void, Emily’s little hand reaching out in fear as she screamed his name, ripped away from him by cold gloved hands.

What was the point of him at all?

* * *

_ Daud _

  
  


Daud watched Maisey leave. The loud hubbub of the Golden Cat’s revelry filled the Ivory Room, before the door closed again, leaving the two of them in relative silence. They stood on opposite sides of the room, the bed between them.

“Alright. Time to chat,” Daud said to Corvo.

“What?”

“Two things. Firstly, where did you get that power? And two. I know you don’t trust me half a damn but you  _ will _ stop treating me like a threat. I’ve humoured you long enough, bodyguard, out of respect for my arrangement with your employer. Next time you go for my throat, you’ll find out the hard way how many bones there are in your hand. Empress be void-damned.” 

Corvo exhaled deeply. He ripped off the plague protective mask, and sank to the bed in the centre of the room, elbows on his knees, head in his palms. Daud waited, watching the man’s back. 

“Alright. And, I don’t know,” Corvo’s voice was low, muffled by his hands.

Daud was taken aback to hear straightforward agreement from the man whose specialty seemed to be complicating things. Corvo sat dragging his hand through his hair. Daud knew better than to speak, letting the weight of silence do the work for him.

“What made you think I couldn’t handle a single target?” Corvo asked, brows furrowed as he turned, looking over his shoulder to meet Daud’s gaze.

“All the info I had was that she wasn’t a courtesan, doesn’t work here, and that she was dragging you away. I saw the knife, I made a call.” Daud shrugged, idly noticing the set of the man’s jaw. Even Corvo’s bleak expression suited him. Some men had all the luck—wait. Why would he notice that?

“You could have taken out the best lead we’ve had so far,” Corvo said, clearly not invested in defending himself.

“You could have been taken out by the best lead we’ve had so far,” Daud said, almost joking. He started to pace around the bed. It had been a weird evening. Circular rooms made him uncomfortable too. “That trick you pulled, moving like that. You’ve seen me do it too. Do it again.” 

Daud watched, hands clasped behind his back, as Corvo gestured with his bandaged hand and reappeared across the room near the balcony door. Corvo unwrapped the bandages, hesitating before lifting the back of his palm for Daud’s inspection. “What do you know of this?”

The Outsider’s mark. By the void. “I know a great deal, bodyguard. I recognise those marks on your hand. A gift from your friend, the one who talks to you in the dark. Talks to you when you visit his shrines. I've visited those shrines too.”

Confusion flitted across Corvo’s face. “Shrines?”

Another surprise this evening from Corvo. It was impossible that he had never seen a shrine, surely...? But, it was clear from his face that Corvo truly didn’t know about the Outsider shrines scattered about the Isles.

How could it be possible that he still yet bore the Outsider’s mark?

“So you never sought him out. But the Outsider has taken a personal interest in you,” Daud said, deliberating. A dark emotion that arose in himself. It could not be jealousy.

Throughout Dunwall, the Overseer’s crusade against the influence of the Outsider meant that most people kept any interest they had in the occult to themselves. No, those who worshipped prayed in secret, at altars wrapped in barbed wire and broken things. He’d seen the extreme lengths that some would go to catch the Outsider’s attention, seen bundles of bodies strewn in an attempt to invite the gaze of the black-eyed bastard. Daud was above all that. And yet, he found himself curious. Maybe too curious.

“What did he say?” Daud asked before he could stop himself.

“Nothing important. It’s late, I’m needed at the Tower.” Corvo’s face was a thousand miles from the present as he re-wrapped his hand.

Daud felt a pang of frustration. Incredible. Corvo knew nothing.

“Corvo,” Daud said sharply, “if there’s one thing to remember about the Outsider, it’s that he doesn’t deal in coincidences. He may offer power, but don’t mistake his gifts for kindness. Come to Rudshore. Learn about that mark. I’d say your life depends on it.”

“Why? And what about the Pendletons?”

“I trust you can manage to organise a meeting with the Empress about their financial and political situation. I’ll deal with the rest.”

There was nothing altruistic in Daud’s offer to help Corvo learn about his powers. Billie had once likened him to a hound for the supernatural, the way he could find shrines from miles away and sunk his teeth into any book that mentioned the Outsider. She had meant it as a joke, but the comparison had a ring of truth to it.

The void was the greatest mystery. Never one to resist his curious streak, Daud’s attraction to the world beyond this one was inevitable.

Once, he’d been the type to laugh at superstition. It seemed the occult was nothing but crude imaginings to strike fear in fools, just as his mother’s knack for poisons and slight of hand had once fooled a crew of pirates into giving her the helm. He wasn’t laughing at superstition now.

Chasing the power of the void had determined the fabric of his life. And so it was that he invited Corvo to his hideout.


	4. Little black book

_ Billie _

  
  


It was early morning by the time she arrived back. The base was as much a hub of activity as it ever was, though you wouldn’t know unless you knew what to look for. The rooms facing the streets rarely betrayed more than a candlelight’s flicker, but the Whalers were an operation that never went dark.

Heading in towards the common room, she could smell roasted chestnuts. They couldn’t always risk lighting the fire—the smoke would act as a beacon announcing their presence—but the hearth being lit guaranteed that morale would be high.

On good days, Billie would come back to warm meals cooked by amateur Whaler chefs. On perfect days, often without any occasion other than opportunity, the long common room table would be filled with as much of a feast as they could manage. When there was a feast, even the least comfortable of their salvaged seating would be taken, and Billie would sometimes transverse in and grab a plate before leaving, wryly smiling as she’d spot Daud in an armchair in the corner. Why he bothered to pretend that he wasn’t avidly listening to Whaler gossip was beyond her—everyone knew he couldn’t help himself. The plates of food passed around told a tale like a patchwork tapestry of flavours from across the Isles.

From the hallway, Billie could pick out Aya’s gleeful laugh that echoed alongside chuckles from the Whalers. Billie stopped short of entering the common room. Instead, she unclipped her mask, leaned against a wall and half-heartedly pretended to adjust the straps as she listened.

“Okay, okay—what about this one—truth or falsehood? He asked me to recite the strictures! And when I told him it was difficult to remember my name let alone recite anything, what with how much he was blowing my mind, he handed me a dog-eared book and bade me continue,” she switched to a deeper, more monotonous tone, “even the lowliest labor that is rigorous, squeezes the muscles..."

Snorts from around the table. Thomas groaned before calling out “truth,” sparking loud disagreement from Chester, who argued that Campbell seemed like the sort to barely let his gaze wander before he spilled his seed. Aya grinned, declaring Thomas the winner with a dramatic sweep of her hand.

Huh. She wasted no time making herself comfortable, Billie thought dryly. She couldn’t find fault there, Aya had always been like that. Quick to warm up to people, quick to make friends.

Billie shrugged off that train of thought, turning on her heel to see if Daud had made it back yet. After seeing that Corvo was headed back to Dunwall Tower, Daud had sent the Whalers back to base. It wasn’t uncommon for him to return alone. The old man spent time at Outsider shrines still, she knew, not that he admitted it anymore. 

Aya’s voice rang out behind her. “Oh! Billie! Hey! Come, sit!”

Fuck. Billie turned around, her smile of greeting stiff on her face. “Hey Aya. How are you feeling?”

Aya beamed back up at her, the hearthlight casting a flush across her skin. “Great! We’re playing truth or falsehood this evening, sit, sit,” she said, moving over to create a seat for Billie on the bench. Chester and Misha shuffled over to make space, their hands busied with peeling chestnuts.

“I’m glad to hear you’re well. But, uh. There’s something I need to check on, I may be back later,” Billie said, vaguely waving and turning away.

She had absolutely no intention of returning to the common room this evening. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to catch up with Aya, and it wasn’t that she disliked the Whalers or banter or these sorts of games, it was… well, whatever it was, she had left it too long, with the Whalers. Too late to make friends now.

It made her a better leader, to keep her distance. Professional. A good working relationship.

And besides, she couldn’t sit still anyway, not yet—Billie was still riding the high of a perfect mission at the Golden Cat. She’d had no trouble coordinating the trio of Whalers, the positions she’d chosen working seamlessly to gather information without losing sight of each other. Their intel had proven useful, and they’d filched enough valuables that even if the Empress wasn’t currently paying their bills they’d have a few weeks of smooth sailing. She’d even pocketed a little something for her own stock of tradable goods.

With a flash of inspiration, she decided she could check in on Daud later. Billie was off to give Campbell a visit instead.

She owed the man a little something for what he’d done to Aya.

* * *

She walked quietly through the dripping hallways below Rudshore, muscle memory guiding her past the traps in the sewers. They were her own handiwork, though she’d passed their maintenance onto Denman in recent years.

Billie was surprised that the Whalers weren’t lining up for the pleasure of putting their boots to Campbell’s face. They hadn’t lost anyone in the fight last week with the Overseers who had come too close to base—though Dodge took a nasty punch to his shoulder that had resulted in the exact sort of jokes you’d expect, with a nickname like that. After the dust had settled, Daud had pored over the maps they’d recovered and concluded it was a sweep rather than a targeted raid. But still, it was unsettling. They’d left no survivors to be safe, though an entire squad of Overseers disappearing meant they could expect more company soon.

Rounding the corner, she recognised Shorter Thomas and Leon both leaning against the wall close to Campbell’s improvised holding cell, their heads bent together in soft discussion. Given Leon's talent for extracting information, Daud had assigned him to Campbell, suggesting they try to get as much from the High Overseer as quickly as possible, without killing him outright.

“Leon. Shorter,” she greeted them both quietly, “what’s the update?”

“Fastest talking coward I’ve ever met,” Leon responded succinctly. “When Daud’s back, I’ll brief him on the rest.”

“No need. I’ll pass it on,” she said, trying to keep the irritation from her voice.

Leon hesitated. Shorter looked between Leon and Billie, and spoke up. “The bit Leon mentioned about a book was interesting.”

“I’m guessing we’re not talking about  _ Litany on the White Cliff _ ?”

Leon sighed. “No. He said he had a black book, he was hoping to trade the location of it in exchange for release.”

“Got it. Whalers, dismissed. I’ll take over here,” she said. Tapping into the void, she watched them leave, then turned to watch Campbell curled up through the walls.

Regardless of what she thought of Leon, he could usually spot a bluff. But the book thing caught her attention. Billie didn’t need to think too hard about the depth of integrity required to regularly break the Strictures while being the public face of the Abbey of the Everyman.

What would make a cowardly man so confident, that he didn’t kill those who threatened to release the details of his blasphemy? Little black book indeed. It didn’t take a genius to work out he had dirt on the rest of the Abbey.

_ Now that was a book worth reading. _

Billie inspected the High Overseer’s form. Leon hadn’t been gentle. The man’s breathing was shallow but even, swelling sealing his eyes closed. _ If her suspicion was right… _

Working silently, she let herself in beside Campbell, looking closely around the room, which stank of piss more than the sewers normally did. Disgusting. She decided the ambiance in here suited him.

He had stripped down to his shirtsleeves, his rich red coat draped over his huddled form as a makeshift blanket. Looking to the void for clues, she guessed that Leon had already turned his pockets out. Squinting through the layers of information available to her, Billie noticed the neon green that indicated something of interest on the man’s form. She’d almost missed the way his coat didn’t droop near the lower hemline.

A hidden pocket then. She lifted the coat off the man carefully, holding it up before her to inspect the lining.

Campbell’s voice was sudden, a low babble. His usual commanding tone—from what she’d heard of it from his broadcasts over Dunwall’s street speakers—was gone, he sounded like a broken man. 

“I told you, let me go and I’ll get you whatever information you want, I have sources on the inside, I may be able to prevent the Warfare Overseers from seeking revenge upon you, you will have what you want you just need to let me go, you just need to let me go...”

Billie grimaced, glancing down at Campbell who had barely moved. Best not to acknowledge any of that, and leave here soon. Letting her fingers do the thinking, she found the covert seam that hid Campbell’s black book. She dropped the coat to the floor, and moved towards the cell’s bars where the light was better, inspecting the pages. Perhaps they were still legible.

Suddenly, white-hot pain as her body collided with metal.

Faster than she would have ever expected of a man that size, Campbell threw himself at her in a bodyslam against the bars, knocking the wind from her lungs. Pain flared down her side as she was crushed, the book falling from her fingertips.

She had badly misjudged him, but had no time to regret if she wanted to live. His lips were curled into a vicious snarl, revealing bloodied teeth.

Instinct—which the Whalers had cultivated and Daud had honed—took over as she tried to guard, but with her sharp exhale of pain, Campbell’s hand was already around her neck, crushing.

“I’ll have you strung up in stocks in Holger Square, and your little friends will be—”

Billie finally loosened her blade, driving her knee into his groin, and as he flinched forward, she stabbed him in his side. His grip on her neck slackened, and she drove her elbow into his sternum for the space she needed thrust her knife up and under his jaw, aiming for the roof of his skull. He dropped like a sack of wet rags, his large form convulsing once before going still.

_ Outsider’s tits _ . Daud had explicitly said to not kill the High Hypocrite. And— _ dammit _ —she’d just given him a far quicker death than he deserved.

She should have guessed her lucky streak today would end. Or maybe she shouldn’t blame something abstract like luck and accept that she got distracted and didn’t take an enemy seriously enough, two things that would set Daud off on a monologue when he found out about this. Shit,  _ shit _ .

Billie eyed Campbell’s bleeding form. She’d missed her chance to make him regret ever laying a violent hand to Aya. Dead men couldn’t have regrets. Well, maybe they could. She cheered a little at that, after all, who knew what happened in the void? Nothing good, if Campbell believed his own sermons.

She wiped his blood off her gloves using his coat, before ripping a glove off in frustration, trying to feel for damage down her side where she had impacted with the metal. For now, hard to say. Bruising was a certainty, and there were some concerning twinges of pain in her back as she moved.

She picked up the wet book with her ungloved hand.  _ This had better be worth it. _

Not bothering to close the makeshift door behind her, she walked back through the sewers, turning pages in Campbell’s blackmail journal while her mind ticked over.

Damn, the whole thing seemed to be encoded.

If she could crack the cipher, she would have no trouble finding bidders for this on the black markets... if she could work out how to sell the information without word getting back to the Whalers. Two very big ifs.

She knew Daud would have uses for information like this, but then, so would Delilah. Both had motivation enough to want control over the Overseers.

She grimaced again. It was a dangerous game to play, but dangerous games were all she knew.

When it came to a payload of this size, she should be thinking about her future. There was money to be made, sure, but at the end of the day, who would be around to protect her? It wasn't worth the risk to sell this off to just anyone, she couldn’t end up on the streets again, hiding from the guard, the Overseers, and maybe too the witches and assassins if she really,  _ really _ fucked this up.

What an ugly web she was entangled in. She’d work it out, she had to. She wracked her brain, tried to think this through.

Daud had made some bizarre decisions lately. Getting tangled up with the Crown was not a direction she ever predicted that he’d take the Whalers in.

Would she have hung around this long, had she guessed that Daud would develop a soft spot for royalty, betraying the location of their base? No matter what Daud told them, the Whalers weren’t primarily businessmen, no, to most people they were wanted criminals. It would be nothing for Lord Corvo Attano to arrange their deaths, and he would be justified to do so. The most powerful woman in the Empire would probably be pleased to make an example of such notorious assassins.

Billie had tried arguing with Daud on it more times than she could count, but the cut ran far deeper than she’d ever let on. Too many of the Whalers were blinded by faith in Daud to ever question his new choice of company. And worse, Deidre had been killed by the Empress’ friends. Daud knew that. It felt like a betrayal.

But what were her other options? Delilah… well, she was a force unlike anything else Billie had ever seen. Among the witches' coven, there had long been whispers that Delilah had freed herself from the chains of mortality. If that were true, Billie knew it wouldn’t be the end of Delilah’s goals—she had never been one to think small.

Billie just didn’t trust that Delilah cared about anything that wasn’t Delilah.

It was something to consider from all angles. To buy herself time, she tucked Campbell’s blackmail book onto a ledge before leaving the sewers.

* * *

_ Daud _

  
  


It was a simple, stupid thing but he had always liked looking up to see the sky. Day or night, rain, smog, didn’t matter.

As a child living on a ship, you’d be sent below deck at the first sign of trouble - which was often, when the crew were marauding bastards. Locked with the cargo, he’d hated the stale air, the way that anything not stored or tied down would fly at you in the dark during poor weather, he hated the distortion of voices from beyond the walls that made it impossible to know for sure what fate awaited aboveboard. Perhaps it wasn’t hate, but by the void, it was easier to call it hate than fear. He still woke up to nightmares about the ship sinking with him trapped below deck.

After returning to base quietly after yesterday’s mission to the Golden Cat, Daud watched the stars from his bed. It was one benefit to never repairing the roof.

Once he had been taught numbers and letters by a kindly ship’s navigator, and later, how to find his way from anywhere in the world using the stars as a guide. It was a skill mostly useless to him now, but philosophically there had always been something about it—to look up and reorient yourself. Billie understood, he was sure of it. She had commented as much as they sat in an abandoned apartment years ago after a job, the ceiling-high windows thrown open and their boots up on a dusty coffee table. Elbow on armrest, chin in palm, he squinted up, watching the morning clouds.

The night's cold lingered, and dust particles floated through the orange-gold break of dawn around them. Living in the slow pace of starlight to sunup was the best part of his irregular hours. Billie had side-eyed him as he watched the sky, saying that for someone who believed in staying sharp he sure liked to keep his head in the clouds. The corner of her eyes had crinkled, her affectionate smile hastily hidden as she shook crumbs from a stolen apricot tart off her coat.

Daud had protested, half-heartedly, that if you're going to be observing you may as well be enjoying, and she had snorted. But he remembered the way her voice softened when she started speaking of the way stars lit up the ocean on clear nights, making her problems feel blissfully small.

* * *

He woke up to rain pouring heavy and cold into his chambers, and he figured he should have known to expect wet weather from the way the sun set last night. After pulling on his boots, he transversed down to his desk to find Thomas already there, flicking through a filing drawer.

“Thomas.”

The Whaler didn’t look up from his work. “Sir, I bring news. The black market is advertising a reward for information about Campbell.” 

“Source?”

“Anonymous, sir. Likely from the Overseers, logic dictates.”

“I’d say you're on the money. What are you doing?” he asked, hoping he only sounded mildly curious.

Thomas finally looked up from the filing drawer, his brown curls falling forward from where he had them tucked behind his ear. His face was flushed. “I was hoping to find notes on Attano,” he said hesitantly. Daud quirked an eyebrow expressionlessly. Thomas was as thorough as they came, the bookish fifth son of a nobleman and star pupil at the Academy, universally considered a rising talent until he fell in with the wrong crowd. Daud was that wrong crowd.

Daud bit back the question ‘why,’ and settled for, “what have you found so far?”

“Mostly observational notes from our training exercises at Dunwall Tower, about his fighting preferences. Rumours about Emily Kaldwin’s parentage, and his involvement with a changing of the guard staff after Euhorn Kaldwin’s death. The Blade Verbena tournament win. Some of your notes too, about incidents near the Tower.”

“What do you gather?”

“That he’s more dangerous than he looks,” Thomas said. Daud waited, listening to the rain on the roof, while Thomas put his thoughts together. “Denman told me that he watched Attano last night at the Golden Cat, and now questions the rumours about Emily’s parentage, as he didn’t seem like a womanizer, maybe not even attracted to women.”

Daud snorted. “Trust Denman to speculate wildly based on nothing. I wouldn’t recommend betting against Emily being Attano’s, unless you wish to lose coin. If it’s not true it doesn’t matter because it’s widely accepted, even if no one is saying it out loud. Thomas. What’s this about? I know you don’t care about gossip.”

Thomas opened his mouth to respond just as Billie transversed into the circle of warm lamplight, her hair plastered against her head like she'd forgotten to put up her hood in the rain. “Bad news,” she announced, sounding grim. Thomas looked relieved to be spared of Daud’s questions, as Billie brushed water from her sleeves.

“It can wait, Lurk. We were speaking,” Daud said.

Thomas’ relief disappeared, and he began to speak again, slowly, “I don’t mean to pry, but why would you would let—”

“Campbell is dead.” Billie interrupted.

“Outsider’s eyes,” Daud snarled, slamming a palm onto the table. He crossed his arms and began to pace in the small space under the mezzanine, the two Whalers moving out of his way. “Lurk. What in the void happened.”

Billie hesitated for a fraction of a second, before exhaling. “When I got back, Leon had finished with Campbell. I wanted to confirm the details for myself, but I got cocky. I let my guard down, he attacked. It went worse for him than for me.”

“What did you learn?” Daud asked her, trying to still his reeling mind.

“What, personally? Oh right. From Campbell. Nothing that Leon didn’t already gather. He kept a black book full of secrets that he used to blackmail people,” Billie responded, almost flippant. Thomas’ eyes flickered between Daud and Billie, not sure if he should risk speaking up through the tension in the air.

With Campbell out of the picture, what would this mean for the Whalers? What would Hiram’s next move be, without the comfortable alliance he had quietly forged with the Overseers? And how would the Abbey respond to Campbell’s death… and who would they promote? Void, should he be reaching out to his contacts to purchase ammunition now, before they hiked the price up?

Vaguely he was aware that he should say something to Billie about insubordination, at least to be fair to Thomas, but that seemed like the least of his problems.

“We need that book. Talk to Leon, reach out to our sources. We need to know what the Overseers want, too. Thomas. That black market note requesting information about Campbell? Trace it back. Arrange a meeting somewhere that won’t get you killed, and bring covert backup. Make up something about spotting Campbell on the other side of the city if you have to. And if it’s the Overseers, find out what they want. If it’s not the Overseers requesting information… well, I think we need to know about that even more,” Daud gave orders quickly, the details loose. He trusted that Thomas would see it through.

“I’ll start with Leon. Master Daud,” Thomas’ exiting bow was graceful, as he left in a shift of the void.

Daud was alone with Billie, together sheltering from the pouring rain. For a time, they didn’t speak. The whale oil lamps burned low, throwing a soft yellow light that cast Billie’s face into shadow. The uneven floorboards in his chamber were riddled with puddles, droplets trickling through the floor all the way down to the sewers.

He couldn’t quite place it, but there was something to the way Billie stood. He leaned against his desk, and turned to meet her eyes. “Tell me what really happened, Lurk,” he paused, before quietly amending, “Billie.”

In shadow, her face tightened. “He feigned weakness, and slammed me against the metal in our holdings. I did what I had to. I have the bruises to prove it, Daud.”

“I’m not going to insult you by saying I don’t believe you, but I will ask that you come back to me with the full story,” his face was stern, but softened as he continued, “when you can. Go to the infirmary, get those bruises checked.”

Billie snorted. “I’ll be fine, old man.”

“Good.”

“By the way… did you see the Outsider, last night? You split off, I assumed it was to find a shrine.”

Daud bitterly laughed once, the only response he could summon, before waving her out of the room. After she left, taking her pitying look with her, he fell to his knees before the filing drawer that Thomas had been looking through, pulling everything out.

He knew he wouldn’t be able to focus, without first double checking that he had definitely burnt all of his notes on Corvo that weren’t strictly need-to-know.

* * *

Idly jotting down notes for his memoirs, Daud knew he had been procrastinating for some time, but didn’t realise how badly until he looked up and felt relieved, of all things, to see that Corvo had been brought into his chambers. Flanked by four masked Whalers, Corvo had pulled up his hood to keep out the rain, but his tense body language suggested he was uncomfortable to be put under guard. Either way, his court manners seemed to be forgotten here as he looked about the room, frowning.

“And so it is we discover who guards the guardsmen. It was us all along,” Daud said dryly. 

“Master Daud, Lord Attano,” Chester introduced the man to their left, bowing while walking backwards. Once Chester had left Corvo’s line of sight, they directed a dramatic shrug at Daud. None of the Whalers had been happy to escort a lord and guardsman to the heart of their base. He couldn’t blame them really.

“Whalers, dismissed,” Daud said. Before he could finish speaking, Corvo was surrounded by four small clouds of void ash, leaving the two alone.

“Is the Empress up to date?” Daud asked. Corvo inclined his head. “Good. That will spare me sending a messenger. Though I have news—Campbell is dead. An accident.”

“Good,” Corvo said, thoughtful.

Daud caught sight of Corvo’s new hand wrappings. Ah. “Out of curiosity… does she know about the Outsider’s mark?” Daud pointed at Corvo’s hand.

“Jess knows.”

“You haven’t been kicked out of the Tower? Suppose, one heretic on your payroll, two heretics, what’s the difference. Bodyguard. Get out of the rain.” Corvo didn’t respond, flicking his hood off and stepping into the warm circle of light under the mezzanine. His shoulders were rigid, his mouth set.

Daud put down his pen, chin resting on his knuckles as he turned to the Royal Protector beside his desk. “Normally when I take on trainees, we start with the basics before we move onto power. Start with how to move. How to fight. But I’ve seen you run on rooftops, and I’ve nearly had my gut spilled by your blade. Congratulations Attano. Today you’ll not be training with the kids.” 

Corvo’s brows furrowed. “Training?”

“What in the Outsiders name did you think I meant, when I told you to come here?”

A one-shoulder shrug. “If there’s an easier way to learn about this then I’m all ears.”

Daud’s lip quirked at the notion of an easy way. “Right. Tell me, other than transversals, what have you gathered? There are few who bear The Outsider’s mark. If the rumours are true, our ‘gifts’ are as varied and unpredictable as the black-eyed bastard’s favour itself.”

Corvo paused before answering, his expression guarded. “Why don’t you tell me first?”

“Sometimes I wonder why I’m not charging you by the hour, Attano. Fine. I can transverse through the void. Pull things towards me. See things of interest, abstractions even, like a target’s intended path. A few other things.” Daud’s gaze dropped to his memoir notes, and he shuffled them out of eyesight.

“Huh. How do you use the pull?” Corvo asked, raising his marked hand. Daud jumped from his seat to halt the gesture, his palm covering Corvo’s mark. Corvo startled at the touch.

“ _ Not _ in here!” Daud snapped.

* * *

_ Corvo _

  
  


“Corvo, this is my lieutenant Thomas. He’s chasing a lead for the Kaldwins today, Misha and Denman are with him as backup. You’re tagging along to learn how to pace your draw on the void. Thomas, pretend we’re not here. The two of us will head back before you get to the rendezvous point.”

Thomas bowed to Corvo. It was something of a surprise for Corvo to see him dressed this way, in plainclothes with a cap over his brown ringlets. It was so easy to forget that the Whalers were human underneath the masks and oilskin coats that made them seem both interchangeable and anonymous.

The three Whalers dematerialised into the void before him. Corvo caught sight of them running along a nearby rooftop in the distance, their footfall silent. He could almost hear the Dunwall Tower drill sergeant's approving grunt about their form. They moved efficiently, geared for endurance.

Corvo readjusted the straps of the Whaler’s mask that he wore at Daud’s insistence. It was a strange weight that drove the chin down, and he could tell he’d need to be careful about how he breathed to avoid fogging up his vision, especially in the rain.

He focused on the building that the Whalers had run across moments before, drawing from the void to transverse to the rooftops.

Daud was a few paces behind as Corvo ran for the next rooftop, his gruff voice almost in his ear. “You’re used to thinking about how to get from A to B. Letting your body take you to where you intend to be. But with the Outsider’s mark, you’re not bound by the rules of your physical form. Think of your destination. Mentally put yourself in that position. Make the call, but let the void take you.”

Putting aside the unsettling nature of being run after—worse,  _ instructed _ —by the assassin he’d watched kill Jess, Corvo focused on his next destination, a ledge that the three Whalers had effortlessly hauled themselves up onto.

His fingernails barely scraped the ledge he intended to grab. Scrabbling desperately to find purchase against wet stone, his hands searing with bloodied scrapes—

—he had missed the jump, he was falling—

With a sickening lurch, his plunge was halted.

He was suspended, mid-fall, the rain uninterrupted around him.

He looked down, seeing himself six floors up, and fought back nausea.

“Happens to everyone,” Daud observed emotionlessly, his hand held high in a claw, his mark blazing blue even beneath his gloves as he tethered Corvo to the rooftop beside him. “Like I said. Don’t think of it as a physical motion, think of where you’ll be. Predict how to land, before you’re there.”

Corvo’s inhale was shuddering as he landed on his knees, bloodied palms on the wet roof tiles next to Daud. He stood, feeling like a newborn Serkonan gazelle rather than the champion of the Blade Verbena, all wobbling knees, and no poise whatsoever. Sick adrenaline from the fall made him almost dizzy, and a dark part of himself pointed out that feeling like a failure around Daud was becoming a trend.

“Again. Go.”

Determined to master this strange new ability, Corvo wouldn’t let a near-accident slow his progress. He would be a formidable guard for Jess and Em if he could master the power of the void, though hiding his heresy would be a political nightmare.

Schooling himself to patience and ignoring the part of himself that bristled at being given orders, Corvo called upon his power again, this time successfully pulling himself up to the ledge.

He broke into a sprint, his torn hands stinging as he leaned into long strides. Deciding he’d get nowhere if he spent his time worrying about Daud behind him, he set his gaze forward - he could just make out the Whalers in the distance. The fire of his competitive streak pushed him forward, past fear, past the shock of falling, to try to close the distance.

Well used to the rhythm of his own stride, it didn’t take him long to learn how to time his powers to match.

Daud’s comments about pacing made more sense, the more he became aware of his reserves of this strange magic. If he waited a few heartbeats between transversals, he suspected he could keep this up as long as his physical stamina lasted. In contrast, when he tried to jump through the void consecutively too many times, he’d hit a wall in a way that felt like trying to get power from an empty whale oil tank.

He noticed, too, that Daud’s men could transverse farther than him. Keeping his breathing measured and working to keep his physical movements explosive—his body's power combined with the Outsider's power—something uncoiled inside of him, the same molten centre that always demanded  _ more, better  _ from himself. Corvo heard something behind him, but his focus was on catching up.

The way he moved with the Outsider’s gift was like closing your eyes and opening them to find yourself elsewhere. Blinking, really. It was exhilarating. He felt giddy. Emily would love this, if he could ever find a way to show her.

Corvo leapt from a tin rooftop, legs stretched, anticipating his next landing—

—and was wrenched backward. Daud’s pull. Again. He fought the urge to snarl at the man, until he met Daud’s gaze.

It was like a switch was flipped. There was no question that this was the expression that had earnt Daud his reputation. His grey eyes were cold, piercing, his scarred lips pulled thin in anger.

Corvo had patrolled the streets of Dunwall amongst the worst of them, but had not seen such bred-in-the-bone, barely tempered animosity before.

Pulled to a halt in more ways than one, Corvo’s anger dissipated.

“Stop, you hot-blooded  _ idiot _ . Listen, for once in your life. We’re too close to Thomas now. I can’t keep yelling out to you without calling attention to the rooftops. You endanger my men. If that was my mark, I’d cast you from the Whalers now, talent be damned.”

Years of guard duty acquiesced to the dressing-down. “Sir,” the traitorous word spilled from his mouth, muscle memory performing a sharp salute, before Corvo could stop himself. He knew of Daud’s reputation—everyone did—but had only witnessed his ferocity now. 

Interesting, though, that the Knife of Dunwall saved his vicious nature for those that endangered the Whalers.

Not reacting to Corvo’s salute, as though it was obvious that Lord Corvo Attano would fall into line like a Lower Guardsman, Daud began, “do better, Attano, you’re onl—” before pausing and squinting to the streets below. He held up a gloved finger, gesturing for quiet.

Corvo, thankful for the mask to conceal his flush, followed the direction of his gaze. He crouched beside Daud. Hooded figures, black masks hiding all but their eyes, sprinted down an alleyway. Daud didn’t hesitate, jumping off the building to the streets below.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Daud is absolutely one of those guys who loves to gossip but also says he can't stand gossip  
> \- Corvo: "what do you mean there's no Idiot's Guide to being the Outsider's Chosen?"  
> \- Billie thinks she's a loner but the most eclectic friends
> 
> By the way - let me know if chapter summaries would be useful to you?  
> I haven't been putting them in as I don't read them, but if you like them let me know? I'll add them!
> 
> Excuse me while I try to not write nothing but Daud and Billie hanging out picking on each other affectionately :')


End file.
